Clear Path assists UXO affected children with scholarships

On the occasion of the new school year 2006-2007, Clear Path International and its local partner, the Section of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs (SoLISA) of Vinh Linh district organize a scholarship granting ceremony at the district people�s committee office.

This is the fifth year CPI conduct its annual activity to assist children affected by landmine/UXO in Vinh Linh. This year, 83 children from primary to high school levels are entitled to receive the grant. Many among them receive this as the third time.


Photo: Scholarship Granting Ceremony

Apart from Vinh Linh, CPI scholarships are reached out to Cam Lo and other districts in Quang Tri as well. Within the next ten day, another 171 children through out the province will receive this type of assistance.

THREE YEARS OLD BOY INJURED IN A UXO ACCIDENT IN QUANG TRI, VIET NAM

When I first received the brief information over the phone about the accident, I couldn�t imagine how a three years old boy could involve in a UXO accident. For he is too small to cause anything that lead to a detonation of a UXO, and that UXO is not that available for small kids like him to lay a finger on. If he was a by-stander then why there was no other casualty reported. I took the truck out of the garage, head to the Quang Tri general hospital, still trying to answer those questions to myself.

The boy was sleeping as the pain killer still had its effect. The doctors had just had an operation to remove fragments. He had black eyes, but it was difficult to tell whether they were also injured or not. The boy was cared by his grandmother while his father had just gone out to get some medicine for him.

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Linh spent almost the entire morning of February 26th, 2006 playing by himself, alone. His mother was too busy taking care of Linh�s younger sibling, who was just several months of age; his father had gone to the farm and his 5 year-old brother had gone with a 7 year-old neighbor boy playing somewhere. Linh came and sat at the threshold, staring out into the front yard... And then he saw his brother with the neighbor boy came back, discussing something lively. Linh walked out to meet them but the elders seemed didn�t want to play with the small kid, thus they quickly threw something into a corner of the yard, turned around and ran away.
Linh felt so disappointed. He turned to walk back into the house, and when he was turning, he saw the thing that the elder boys had left at the corner. Linh walked towards it, picked it up. The boy took the device for a sweet potato with red mud stuck out side, and that made him feel hungry. Just as he entered the kitchen, he saw his father arrived home. The boy just said hi to his father and kept walking into the kitchen. He sat in front of the fire, and put the �potato� into the fire to bake it (he had learned this from his older brother and often does this whenever hungry).
Nobody knew what was happening in the kitchen. As when Linh�s father got home, he entered the house, poured himself a huge glass of water and sat at the threshold to drink. Then there came the explosion from the kitchen. Linh received multiple injuries in his left wrist, fingers, his face and his legs. Luckily, there was no injury in vital parts.