"Nguyen Luong Quy was planting a tree on a coffee plantation on the outskirts of Buon Ma Thout, the largest city in Vietnam's Central Highlands in 2000, when his shovel hit a hard metal object.
"There was a big explosion and I must have been knocked unconscious," the 37-year-old farmer told IRIN. "I woke up in hospital and at first I thought I was dead because everything was white."
Although his left arm was blown off, Quy survived the blast, caused by a bomblet - one of millions of cluster bombs dropped by American forces between 1964 and 1973.
But despite his first-hand experience of the dangers of unexploded ordnance (UXO), like many poor Vietnamese, Quy continues to scavenge for the metal contained in cluster bomblets and other unexploded munitions....
...."Scrap metal provides a decent and immediate income without needing any qualifications or investment," notes Tran Hong Chi from Clear Path International (CPI), an UXO victim assistance charity in Dong Ha, the provincial capital of Quang Tri.
"It's not just farmers or the jobless who need the money. In July, a teacher was killed while digging up a bomb during his summer vacation. He had a good job and should have known about the risks."
At the same time, the global economic slowdown is straining the budgets of the NGOs involved in mine clearance."
Read the rest of this article at:
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=87822
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