VIENTIANE, June 6 (Xinhua) -- Seek and destroy efforts for decades-old bombs and explosive munitions strewn across landlocked Laos since the Vietnam War era will get a boost of 2,178,865 U.S. dollars in funding from the United States, local media reported Monday.
A Memorandum of Understanding was signed in Vientiane on Friday to launch the project, state-run media Vientiane Times reported.
The funding via the U.S. State Department's Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement will see the Mine Action Group and National Regulatory Authority for the UXO/Mine Action Sector in the Lao PDR (NRA) focusing on survey and clearance in three districts of Xieng Khouan province, among the country's most heavily-bombed regions during a nine-year period from 1964.
According to the United Nations and based on U.S. military flight data, U.S bombers released more than two million tonnes of ordnance upon Laos including more than 270 million anti-personnel cluster sub-munitions of which some 80 million failed to detonate upon impact.
According to the NRA and UN figures, some 55,000 hectares had been cleared between 1996 and end of 2015 of the estimated 8.7 million hectares affected, or some 6.3 percent.
In 2008, Laos' National UXO Survey indicated some 50,136 casualties from bombs and UXO from 1964 to 2008, with the bulk of victims aged between 15 and 35 years old.
As recently as 2008, some 300 casualties were recorded in a year.
The five-year period from 2011-2015 saw UXO-related accidents in Laos result in an additional 522 casualties, including 131 deaths, according to official figures published by the United Nations Development Program in February. The majority were children.
Education and clearance efforts have helped foment a reduction in the rate of new incidents, allowing Laos to meet its 2015 United Nation's Millennium Development Goals target of reducing new casualties to 75 annually by 2015, a goal surpassed with 30 fewer deaths recorded in 2014.
This announcement comes before the scheduled visit of U.S. President Barack Obama to Laos in September for the East Asia Summit when further U.S. support to Lao to bolster UXO survey and clearance is expected to be announced.
