UXO

March 3, 2010.

There is a UXO (unexploded ordinance) visit centre here in Luang Prabang. People can go and find out about initiatives to educate the Lao about UXOs and to clear UXOs from specific areas.
One of the GVI volunteers has made contact with the UXO visit centre and is teaching English to the officials there for an hour a day.

The UXO situation was made more real to us a few weeks ago when the UXO team sent a notice to our guesthouse, which is right beside the Nam Khan (river) indicating that between 9 and 10 AM the next day (it was a Friday) they would be exploding an UXO down by the river. People were asked not to watch. I was teaching at the time but one of the other volunteers was in the guesthouse and said she could hear and feel the explosion. We were curious where the UXO came from. As far as we knew, Luang Prabang was not bombed. Ron was talking to a local who said that in general, Luang Prabang was not bombed but that the old bridge (right behind our guesthouse) was bombed as a strategic target. He said an UXO was found there a year and a half ago. He went to watch the UXO team detonating the UXO found recently and said it was a cluster bomb. I gather they wouldn’t have tried to take out the bridge with cluster bombs so we are guessing that it was washed down the river from somewhere further north. The river is very low at the moment so it is possible the cluster bomb was there for a while but only now visible.

A volunteer from London saw the following article in the Times shortly afterwards. It is very sobering to be living in a community for which this is a very real issue (and as I said, UXOs are not considered to be an issue in Luang Prabang).

http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/article7036794.ece