The United States intensified the war against North Vietnam by dropping more than two million tonnes of bombs in Laos on Thanksgiving Day in November 1968. American Thanksgiving celebrated this year marks the 50th years since the biggest bombing campaign in history that killed thousands of lives of communist rebels and the innocents, 50 years ago and until now.
In 2016, President Obama doubled the funds allocated for the clearing operations that will recover bombs dropped in Laos. The country was given an additional $30million per year for three years to assist them in clearing undetonated cluster bombs that are still spread in the country's landscape. The president said that it is the United States "moral obligation to help Laos heal".
The United States feared the spread of communism in Vietnam as the civil war rages in the country between the communist Pathet Lao party and the Royal Lao Government. The CIA interfered in the by supporting the Royal Lao Government by dropping two million tons of bombs that will cut the supply lines used by the communist rebels. The bombing started in 1964 and it lasted until 1973.
According to the report of the advocacy and education group, Legacies of War, about 2 million tons of ordnance were dropped on the country in nine years duration. Aside from the ordinance, an estimated amount of 270 million cluster bombs were dropped during the period. According to estimates, around 80 million undetonated cluster bombs are still spread in the farmland of Laos.
After 50 years, innocent lives are still wasted as the country clears the remnants of the bombing. According to Manixia Thor, a Laotian operations manager at the UK-based Mines Advisory Group (MAG), said that about 75 percent of injuries from cluster munitions involve children. MAG is one of the several NGOs trying to clear Laos of the undetonated ordnance (UXO).
Thor said that the cluster bombs are attractive to children because they are shaped like a ball which is tempting for a child living in a poor country like Laos where toys and other amusements are scarce.
Callum Gibs, a 26-year-old Scot working in the southern province of Savannakhet for HALO Trust, said that the estimate casualties since the war ended is more or less 50,000. He believes that the only way to save the children from death and injury caused by the bombs is by educating them. According to him, they are trying out to educate them as much as possible by showing them pictures of the bombs and by teaching them a UXO song so that they remember that it is dangerous.
