Co-authored by Ari Perlstein, a medical student at the Oregon Health & Science University, and CPI co-founder Imbert Matthee, the article highlights the persistent problem of UXO (unexploded ordnance) accidents in a region which ranks among the most mine-affected in the world. It also outlines the work Clear Path has undertaken since 2000 to assist landmine accident survivors, their families and their communities in the provinces north and south of the former Demilitarized Zone.
With the help of its donors and supporters in the United States, Clear Path has been able to serve nearly 5,000 landmine accident survivors in 14 of Vietnam's central coast provinces -- an effort that won the organization a Certificate of Merit from the People's Committee of Quang Tri, one of the region's most heavily affected provinces.
The Vietnamese Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs reports that nearly 40,000 people were killed and more than 66,000 injured between the end of the war in Indochina in 1975 and 2006 with many of these accidents occurring along the central coast. The article analyzes accident data for the region from the year 2007 and breaks it down by type, location, age, gender, ethnicity and injury to give a cross-section of today's impact on daily life from these Explosive Remnants of War.The Journal of Mine Action is a highly regarded publication of the university's Mine Action Information Center in Harrisonburg, Va., a leader in the academic discipline that concerns itself with the professional mitigation of landmines and unexploded ordnance in current and former war zones.
Co-author Ari Perlstein spent six months at the Da Nang Orthopedic & Rehabilitation Center, one of the Clear Path's largest medical partners treating landmine accident survivors in Vietnam.
Read the story here: http://www.maic.jmu.edu/