Hien Ngo – RENEW https://landmines.org.vn Making Vietnam safe Mon, 17 Aug 2026 04:41:27 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.0.4 https://i0.wp.com/landmines.org.vn/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/cropped-RENEW_Vietnam_Logo.png?fit=32%2C32&ssl=1 Hien Ngo – RENEW https://landmines.org.vn 32 32 158756119 Twenty-Five Years On, the Work Continues https://landmines.org.vn/twenty-five-years-work-continues/ Mon, 17 Aug 2026 04:24:11 +0000 https://landmines.org.vn/?p=11407 Twenty-five years after Project RENEW began in Quảng Trị, more than half the province's hazardous land has been cleared. As the anniversary is marked, the work continues.]]>

Quảng Trị, August 2026

Mr. Chuck Searcy, co-founder of Project RENEW and representative of VVMF in Vietnam, and Mr. Hoàng Đăng Mai, Chief of the Foreign Affairs Division, Office of the Quảng Trị Provincial People’s Committee, cut the ribbon to launch Project RENEW. Đông Hà. 15 August 2021.

On 15 August 2001, a small team began work in Quảng Trị with a single purpose: to help families live safely on land that still held the explosive remnants of a war that had ended a generation earlier. That was the beginning of Project RENEW.

Ms. Edel Cribbin and colleagues from the Embassy of Ireland, together with staff of the RENEW Center, visit the family of Mr. Hồ Văn Y, a UXO survivor near the former Tà Cơn Airbase. Khe Sanh, 26 May 2026.

Twenty-five years later, that work goes on.

In a quarter of a century, the confirmed hazardous land across the province has been surveyed field by field, and more than half of it has now been cleared and given back to the farmers who depend on it. More than 3,000 people, many living with the lasting effects of the war, have received prosthetic limbs and rehabilitation. Children have learned to recognize and stay away from unexploded ordnance at the Project RENEW Mine Action Visitor Center. Survivors and people with disabilities have built livelihoods that provide for entire families.

None of this has been the work of one organization alone. From the first day, Project RENEW has been carried by the people of Quảng Trị and by friends around the world who believed this land could be made safe again.

Among those friends, Friends of Project RENEW, our support group in the United States, has launched a campaign to mark the anniversary: “$25 for 25 Years.” Every gift helps teach a child to stay safe and restore mobility to a survivor.

The danger is far smaller than it once was. It is not yet gone. As we mark 25 years, we are not only looking back at what has been done, but forward to the day when no family in Quảng Trị has to fear the ground beneath their feet.

To support the next 25 years, visit Friends of Project RENEW.

Loading

]]> 11407 Chuck Searcy: “Look to Quảng Trị” https://landmines.org.vn/chuck-searcy-look-to-quang-tri/ Wed, 12 Aug 2026 09:01:59 +0000 https://landmines.org.vn/?p=11399 Project RENEW co-founder Chuck Searcy reflects on more than 30 years with Quảng Trị, and shares his message on peace for the next generation.]]>

More than thirty years ago, Chuck Searcy returned to Vietnam for the first time since the war. In a July interview with Quảng Trị Radio and Television, the Project RENEW co-founder looked back on that journey.

“The most special aspect of Quảng Trị, the thing that strikes almost all Americans and foreigners first, is the combination of determination, resilience and strength in the people of Quảng Trị,” he said. “But also their compassion and their forgiveness, because they have experienced so much tragedy over the past decades, with the terrible war and its terrible consequences here. And yet they remain open, warm, friendly, welcoming to everyone. It’s wonderful, and it’s an amazing characteristic of the people of Quảng Trị province.”

Comparing today’s Quảng Trị to the province he first knew, he described a place transformed: “The biggest changes are the most obvious ones, in the infrastructure, the land, and the prosperity of the local people, compared to 30 years ago, when Quảng Trị was very, very poor and desperately seeking to revitalize, to grow, to prosper, to build a new life for the people. That was a very difficult time, decades ago. And today the results are obvious. There are new buildings, new roadways and infrastructure. There is land being farmed productively. There’s industry, development, growth in services, the educational system. Everything in Quảng Trị today is so much better than it was years ago, when I first came here. Growth and the development here.”

Asked at the close of the interview what message he would send today’s generation in Vietnam and the United States about peace, Searcy answered:

“I would say, look to Quảng Trị province. Look to the people here. Look to life here today. The rebuilding that has occurred since the war. The new life that has opened up for the next generations of children here.

“Quảng Trị province is a wonderful example that the rest of us can follow. And for most of us, that example is an inspiration that motivates the rest of us to go on and try to build a world of peace, a world of compassion, and a world of sharing. So I have deep respect for the people of Quảng Trị province. I have much admiration for them, and for what they have taught us about recovery and reconciliation, peace and friendship.”

Interview by Quảng Trị Radio and Television, reporter Nguyên Bảo. Filmed July 2026.

Loading

]]> 11399 The Hundredth Task https://landmines.org.vn/the-hundredth-task/ Fri, 07 Aug 2026 09:16:14 +0000 https://landmines.org.vn/?p=11394 The hundredth battle area clearance task begins in Cồn Tiên, on ground once crossed by the McNamara Line. Ninety-nine tasks stand behind it: 24,692 explosive items destroyed and nearly 58 square kilometers of Quảng Trị returned to the families who live on it.]]>

Loading

]]> 11394 Mr. Tâm’s Peanut Garden, on Land Just Handed Back https://landmines.org.vn/mr-tams-peanut-garden-land-handed-back/ Thu, 16 Jul 2026 23:16:08 +0000 https://landmines.org.vn/?p=11377 Two months after his land was cleared and handed back, Mr. Tâm has replanted rubber, peanut and cassava. A first look at what happens after clearance in Thuỷ Trung.]]>

Impact story

In January 2026, we met Mr. Nguyễn Sư Tâm (born 1974) just after NPA/RENEW clearance teams found and safely destroyed an artillery shell right in his garden in Thuỷ Trung village, Vĩnh Hoàng commune. On 14 July 2026, we came back, to the very same ground, as part of the post-clearance impact assessment process.

Mr. Tâm weeding cassava between rows of young rubber trees

Mr. Tâm weeds his cassava between rows of young rubber trees, on land just cleared.

His family’s 1,500 m² of land sat inside Confirmed Hazardous Area (CHA) 0885. On it, Tâm grows rubber, intercropped with peanut, cassava and yam to earn income while waiting for the rubber trees to be ready for tapping. The last peanut harvest brought the family 12 million VND (US$460). His wife, Nguyễn Thị Hương, makes cassava starch and hand-rolls incense at home for extra income. The couple has two sons: one drives a taxi, the other is a student at Hue University of Agriculture and Forestry.

“It feels safe. I feel a real joy now that the land has been cleared of unexploded ordnance,” Tâm said.

Mr. Tâm helping his wife dry incense in the front yard

Mr. Tâm helps his wife, Nguyễn Thị Hương, dry incense in the front yard.

On 6 May, NPA/RENEW handed over two areas (CHA 0884 and CHA 0885, totaling 2,482,460 m²) to the local authorities, returning safe land to 3,014 people in Thuỷ Trung. During clearance, the teams found and dealt with 655 items of explosive ordnance, of which 347 were cluster munitions.

Right next to the two handed-over areas, the teams are now clearing CHA 0881 in Xóm Nỗng village, Cửa Tùng commune (1,349,662 m²), which began on 20 April and is due for completion on 30 September 2026. So far they have cleared 777,765 m², more than half, and found 336 explosive items.

Two NPA/RENEW team members using a large-loop detector

Two NPA/RENEW team members search for ordnance with a large-loop detector.

Every square meter cleared of explosive ordnance is another peanut crop, another cassava crop, sown without fear.

We sincerely thank the Government of the United States through the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi, and the Government of Norway for the valuable support to our meaningful mine action work in Vietnam.

Loading

]]> 11377 From Gio Linh to Cồn Tiên: One Morning, Two Urgent Calls https://landmines.org.vn/from-gio-linh-to-con-tien/ Tue, 30 Jun 2026 13:27:52 +0000 https://landmines.org.vn/?p=11315 Two urgent calls, one morning. NPA/RENEW's EOD team safely clears two explosive items in Gio Linh and Cồn Tiên, Quảng Trị.]]>

On the morning of 26 June 2026, NPA/RENEW’s Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) responded to two calls from Quảng Trị local residents in quick succession, both through the provincial UXO hotline.

 

A mortar in the garden

The first came from Cẩm Phổ village, Gio Linh commune. Mr. Lê Văn Trà (born 1974, father of two sons) and his wife were clearing grass on the small plot in front of their house, preparing the ground for the next crop, when they uncovered a mortar round on the edge of the land plot. They stopped, left it untouched, and called the hotline immediately.

NPA/RENEW EOD team, led by Deputy Leader Nguyễn Văn Thuỷ, arrived and identified it as a US-made 60mm mortar round, with a missing fuze and safe to move. Mr. Trà smiled with relief as the mortar was removed from his garden. The land his family has farmed for years carries one less danger.

A heavily corroded 60mm mortar round lying among soil and dry grass.

A heavily corroded US-made 60mm mortar round, lying in the soil of Mr. Trà’s garden for more than half a century before it was found and safely removed.

Mr. Lê Văn Trà smiling as he talks with an EOD team member.

Mr. Lê Văn Trà smiles with relief after the 60mm mortar round was safely removed from his garden.

Quang Tri Mine Action Center’s statistics indicate that Cẩm Phổ village has recorded 31 accidents from explosive ordnance (EO) since the war ended. Every EO safely removed is one more time such an accident-recorded number does not grow.

The land his family has farmed for years carries one less danger.

The Hill of Angels

The second task took the team up to Cồn Tiên, the “Hill of Angels,” once a US Marine combat base. In Phú Ốc village, Mr. Võ Văn Bốn found a 40mm grenade or M79 munition round lying on the pavement of an inter-village road that is being repaired. He reported his sighting to the commune military command.

In the afternoon of 25 Jun, Captain Đoàn Văn Nghĩa, the military officer of Cồn Tiên commune, had come to the spot and placed four concrete blocks around the M79 to warn his neighbors and keep the area safe until the EOD team could arrive the following morning. He guided the NPA/RENEW team to the location himself. The 40mm grenade was later assessed as safe to remove.

Captain Đoàn Văn Nghĩa standing by four concrete blocks marking the spot on the road.

Captain Đoàn Văn Nghĩa points to the spot on the inter-village road where the M79 round lay, marked the previous afternoon with four concrete blocks to keep residents safe.

Two ends of the same land

Two EO, from two ends of the same land, from the Gio Linh coast to the hill at Cồn Tiên, were carried to a safe demolition site and destroyed together that same morning.

The EOD team holding a briefing at the demolition site in a rubber plantation.

The NPA/RENEW EOD team holds a safety briefing before destroying the two explosive items recovered that morning.

A plume of smoke rising among rubber trees at the moment of demolition.

The two explosive items, a 60mm mortar round from Gio Linh and an M79 round from Cồn Tiên, are safely destroyed together on the morning of 26 June 2026.

During the first half of 2026, the NPA/RENEW mobile EOD team received 191 tasks through the hotline and safely removed and destroyed 283 EO items.

People report, local military forces secure the site, the EOD team clears it. This is how a community in Quảng Trị keeps itself safe, more than fifty years after the guns fell silent.

We sincerely thank the Government of the United States through the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi, and the Government of Norway for the valuable support to our meaningful mine action work in Vietnam.

Loading

]]> 11315 Touch Your Dreams: Sons and Daughters of Quảng Trị Return to Light a Dream https://landmines.org.vn/touch-your-dreams-quang-tri/ Tue, 23 Jun 2026 11:46:46 +0000 https://landmines.org.vn/?p=11303 Sixty students from Cam Lộ and Đông Hà came face to face with two people who grew up on Quảng Trị's red soil and went far: the province's first female pilot and a saxophonist who came home to tell them the road from here leads somewhere, and that every journey begins with a safe step.]]>
Sixty students from Lê Thế Hiếu and Cam Nghĩa schools at RENEW's Mine Action Visitor Center during the Touch Your Dreams program

Sixty students from Lê Thế Hiếu and Cam Nghĩa schools fill RENEW’s Mine Action Visitor Center for Chạm Đến Ước Mơ, an afternoon built around one belief: that the road from Quảng Trị leads to wide horizons.

A talkshow that gave students new belief through stories from their own home ground

On a Monday afternoon, under the heavy summer sun, sixty students from Lê Thế Hiếu School and Cam Nghĩa School (Cam Lộ), together with many other children from Đông Hà, gathered at RENEW’s Mine Action Visitor Center for Chạm Đến Ước Mơ (Touch Your Dreams). The talkshow brought the students closer to role models who grew up on the soil of Quảng Trị and have gone far on their own journeys.

The program is part of the Safe Steps, Safe Life project, funded by the Embassy of Ireland in Vietnam.

Pilot Nguyễn Trần Diệu Thuý and saxophonist Phan Lê Hiếu meet students from Quảng Trị

Two children of this red soil who grew up here and went far. Pilot Nguyễn Trần Diệu Thuý and saxophonist Phan Lê Hiếu came home to tell the students it can be done.

The two guests took the stage. Nguyễn Trần Diệu Thuý, the first female pilot from Quảng Trị, born in 1989 in the village of Phổ Lại, Cam An, and now a mother of three, told the students she hoped to see them follow her into the sky.

“I hope there will be many young pilots from Quảng Trị. Together, we will fly across the skies of our homeland,” she said. “I still have more than twenty years of flying ahead of me, so I am sure I will meet one of the faces here again.”

A student asks the guests a question during the Touch Your Dreams talkshow in Đông Hà

Not a lecture but a conversation. The students asked their own questions, and the answers came back as encouragement rather than instruction.

Phan Lê Hiếu, a saxophonist from Đông Hà, born in 1991 into a family with no musical background, urged the students to hold on to their dreams.

“Always keep dreaming,” he said. “Study gives you a foundation of knowledge, but dreams will carry you farther and take you to more places. Every journey has a first step, which is why safety matters so much.”

Beyond the conversation with the two guests, the children also revisited the four safe steps to take when they encounter a bomb, mine, or other explosive, learning them through fun, easy-to-remember movements with the Đông Hà children’s performance group in a lively dance set to the song Safe Steps.

Children dance to Safe Steps with the Đông Hà children's performance group, rehearsing the four safe steps when encountering bombs and mines

Four safe steps, learned through movement and laughter. The children rehearse what to do when they find a bomb or piece of unexploded ordnance, dancing to Safe Steps with the Đông Hà children’s performance group.

Afterward, the students wrote their own dreams on Dream Cards, a small act that, for many of them, felt like a first step.

Students write their dreams on Dream Cards during the Touch Your Dreams program

A dream, once written down, becomes a first step. Each child set their hope on paper, the smallest and surest beginning of a long journey.

Every child has the right to grow up, to learn, to play, and to chase their dreams. And all of that begins with safe steps.

Chạm Đến Ước Mơ (Touch Your Dreams) is part of the Safe Steps, Safe Life project, a communications campaign on the prevention of cluster bombs and other explosive ordnance accidents, carried out by RENEW with the support of the Embassy of Ireland in Vietnam.

Loading

]]> 11303 A Hand to Hold: The Embassy of Ireland in the Hills of Quang Tri https://landmines.org.vn/a-hand-to-hold-embassy-of-ireland-in-quang-tri/ Sat, 30 May 2026 11:02:23 +0000 https://landmines.org.vn/?p=11237 In late May, a delegation from the Embassy of Ireland in Viet Nam, led by Ms. Edel Cribbin, came to Quảng Trị to meet the families behind a decade-long partnership. From a stilt house in Khe Sanh to a breeding cow in Hướng Hiệp, the visit traced what accompaniment really means.]]>

A two-day field visit reinforces a decade-long partnership for victim assistance and explosive ordnance risk education.

Ms. Edel Cribbin walks hand in hand with a young boy along a dirt path near a stilt house, a woman beside them.
Ms. Edel Cribbin walks hand in hand with the grandson of Mr. Ho Van My’s family on the way back from checking the breeding cow provided by RENEW, with Ms. Ho Thi Tran alongside, in Phu An Village, Huong Hiep Commune.

On 28 and 29 May 2026, a delegation from the Embassy of Ireland in Viet Nam, led by Ms. Edel Cribbin, Head of Development Cooperation, visited the RENEW Center for Rehabilitation and Disability Support in Quang Tri Province. After first meeting the RENEW team over a Zoom call in March 2026, Ms. Cribbin was now able to step onto the ground in Quang Tri and see the work for herself. The two-day visit was an opportunity for the Embassy to observe activities of the Victim Assistance, Disability Support, and Explosive Ordnance Risk Education project that it has funded for the past decade, and to meet directly with families whose lives have been shaped by the long shadow of war and the steady work of recovery.

In Khe Sanh: thirteen years on

Embassy of Ireland delegation and RENEW staff stand with a family outside their stilt house in Khe Sanh.
Ms. Edel Cribbin and Embassy of Ireland colleagues, together with RENEW staff, meet Mr. Ho Van Y and his family outside their stilt house in Ruong Village, Khe Sanh.

In Ruong Village, Khe Sanh Commune, the delegation visited the family of Mr. Ho Van Y. At the age of seventeen, Mr. Y was tilling a coffee farm near the former Ta Con Airbase when he struck an unexploded bomb in the soil. He lost his right leg in the accident. Thirteen years on, he has received three successive prostheses from the RENEW Center, raises four breeding cows on the surrounding hillside, and lives in a stilt house with his wife and three young sons.

The delegation sat with the family inside the house, listened to Mr. Y describe the rhythm of his days, and handed over essential household equipment: a water filter, an electric fan, a food cabinet, and a rice cooker. A small fire pit in the corner of the home, with a kettle resting on a three-legged trivet, spoke of the modest scale on which a family in this mountainous commune still builds a life.

A man and woman tend their cattle on a hillside in 2021.
Mr. Y and his wife tend their cattle in 2021, when they were raising their first son. Today the family keeps four breeding cows and three young boys.

In Huong Hiep: a life rebuilt

In Phu An Village, Huong Hiep Commune, the delegation met Mr. Ho Van My and his wife, Ms. Ho Thi Tran. Mr. My was blinded in a landmine accident at the age of seventeen, while working the soil near his family’s home. Ms. Tran was born with congenital leg atrophy. The two married in 2022 and have three children together. Their youngest daughter is currently studying Japanese in Hanoi, with the hope of one day working abroad.

Last month, after a needs assessment by RENEW staff, the family received a breeding cow. The animal now grazes near the house. For a couple who have lived most of their lives with disability and very limited means, the cow is more than livestock. It is a quiet symbol of a life being rebuilt, one season at a time.

At the Visitor Center: education that prevents tragedy

On the morning of 29 May, the delegation visited the Mine Action Visitor Center, where four Explosive Ordnance Risk Education (EORE) activity groups were running simultaneously: outdoor mine-risk games and safety marking, a general orientation on the causes of accidents and safe behavior, an immersive experience using the RENEW AR augmented reality application, and a peer education model in which students role-play to understand and walk alongside persons with disabilities.

The activities, designed for school-aged children, brought to life the kind of patient, hands-on risk education that helps prevent the next generation of tragedies, of the kind that the families in Khe Sanh and Huong Hiep have lived through.

Ho Van Lai speaks with the visiting delegation during a peer education activity with students.
Hồ Văn Lai, a cluster munition survivor and risk education collaborator with RENEW, explains the peer education activity to the delegation, joined by students role-playing to understand and walk alongside persons with disabilities.

Looking ahead together

RENEW staff present to the Irish delegation in a meeting room.
In the Center’s meeting room, the delegation follows a briefing on the progress of the two project components.

In the Center’s meeting room, the leadership of the RENEW Center and the program managers of the two project components briefed Ms. Cribbin and her colleagues on activity progress and looked ahead to the next phase of work. The conversation also touched on the scope of project activities across the communes of Cua Tung, Gio Linh, Hieu Giang, Trieu Phong, Trieu Binh, and Vinh Dinh, and the encouraging fact that no UXO accidents have been recorded in the project areas during the current reporting period.

A decade of accompaniment

Project RENEW expresses its sincere gratitude to the Government of Ireland, through the Embassy of Ireland in Viet Nam, for its enduring partnership: funding Explosive Ordnance Risk Education since 2015, and Victim Assistance and Disability Support since 2016.

A decade of accompaniment has translated, in homes from Khe Sanh to Huong Hiep, into prostheses and breeding cows, into water filters and rice cookers, and above all into the quiet certainty that the most vulnerable are not being left behind.

Go raibh maith agaibh.

 

Loading

]]> 11237 A Naval Shell in the Garden: A Morning at Hội Yên with the PM/WRA Delegation https://landmines.org.vn/a-naval-shell-in-the-garden-a-morning-at-hoi-yen-with-the-pm-wra-delegation/ Sun, 24 May 2026 11:41:30 +0000 https://landmines.org.vn/?p=11212 HOI YEN VILLAGE (12 May 2026) – On the morning of 12 May, a five-member delegation from the Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement (PM/WRA) of the U.S. Department of State, together with the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi, arrived at NPA/RENEW’s Central Demolition Site (CDS) in Vĩnh Định Commune. The delegation was led by Programme […]]]>

The PM/WRA delegation visiting NPA/RENEW’s central demolition site at Hoi Yen village, Vinh Dinh commune, where explosive ordnance items recovered through the QTMAC hotline are safely destroyed.

HOI YEN VILLAGE (12 May 2026) – On the morning of 12 May, a five-member delegation from the Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement (PM/WRA) of the U.S. Department of State, together with the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi, arrived at NPA/RENEW’s Central Demolition Site (CDS) in Vĩnh Định Commune. The delegation was led by Programme Manager Ethan Rinks.

The visit was part of PM/WRA’s periodic monitoring of its grantees in central Vietnam. The destination was a perimetered clearing in the heart of one of the province’s most heavily contaminated districts, where unexploded ordnance recovered from across Quảng Trị is taken for safe and permanent destruction.

Six items were waiting.

The demolition pit prepared at NPA/RENEW’s CDS for the 5-inch naval shell containing white phosphorus, unearthed by a Trúc Lâm villager tending his garden in Gio Linh.

Five of them had been recovered from a single field in Vĩnh Quang Hạ Village, Gio Linh Commune. A farmer working his land had uncovered a metallic object protruding from the soil. He recognized what he saw, an 81mm mortar round, and called the QTMAC hotline. NPA/RENEW’s Explosive Ordnance Disposal team, tasked by the Quảng Trị Mine Action Centre, arrived to investigate. A careful search of the area around the find produced four more items the farmer had not seen, all U.S.-pattern munitions: three M79 grenades and an M26 hand grenade, all lying in the same soil where his rice would have grown.

The sixth item came from a different Gio Linh field, and a different story. In Trúc Lâm Village, a man tending his garden uncovered something larger: a 5-inch U.S. naval shell, fired from offshore more than half a century ago, its white phosphorus filler still viable. Another phone call to QTMAC. Another response by the EOD team. Another recovery and transport to Hội Yên.

Before the demolition began, the delegation walked the perimeter of an older crater nearby, twenty meters wide and five meters deep. It had been formed six days earlier, when NPA/RENEW’s EOD team destroyed a 750-pound M117 aerial bomb at this same site. That earlier bomb, recovered from beside the Sa Lung railway in Vĩnh Linh, had been quietly waiting just thirty centimeters below the soil for over fifty years until repair workers uncovered it. The crater now stood as a sobering measure of what the railway, and the families living beside it, had been spared.

The delegation observing a crater 20 meters wide and 5 meters deep, resulting from the demolition of the 750-pound high-explosive M117 aerial bomb which the NPA/RENEW EOD team handled on 6 May, following a local community report of an item found near the North – South railway.

NPA/RENEW Team Leader Hoàng Kim Chiến then briefed the delegation on the sequence to come: two separate detonations, the first for the five high-explosive items from Vĩnh Quang Hạ, the second for the white phosphorus shell from Trúc Lâm. The operation was coordinated with the commune authorities and the Military Liaison Officer.

NPA/RENEW EOD team leader Hoang Kim Chien briefing the PM/WRA delegation on the two sequenced detonations that his team is going to undertake in coordination with the commune authorities and military liaisons.

The first detonation came shortly afterwards. The second followed once the team had confirmed the site was clear. By mid-morning, all six items were gone.

Six items. Two villages. Two phone calls. One complete cycle of the provincially-led, partner-implemented model that defines mine action in Quảng Trị.

The 5-inch shell recovered from Trúc Lâm carries its own historical weight. Naval gunfire support along the Vietnamese coast, particularly off Quảng Trị and the former Demilitarized Zone, was sustained throughout the war. That such a shell could lie intact in a Gio Linh garden for more than fifty years, its filler still chemically viable, is a measure of how patient the legacy of that bombardment has been.

The moment of the demolition for the white phosphorus shell, which requires separate handling. Half a century after they were fired, six explosive remnants of war end their journey in two controlled demolitions.

It is also a measure of why monitoring visits like this one matter. Every survey conducted, every square meter cleared, every item safely destroyed in central Vietnam stands on a partnership that has been sustained, year after year, by U.S. Government support delivered through PM/WRA.

Fifty years after the war, the work continues. From the rice fields of Vĩnh Quang Hạ to the gardens of Trúc Lâm, the soil of Quảng Trị is being returned, item by item, to the families who live above it.

We sincerely thank the Government of the United States, through the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi, for the valuable support that makes this work possible.

Loading

]]> 11212 The Shadow of the 17th Parallel: M117 Disposed Near Sa Lung Railway https://landmines.org.vn/m117-disposed-near-sa-lung-railway/ Mon, 11 May 2026 14:01:57 +0000 https://landmines.org.vn/?p=11186 Five meters from Vietnam's main North–South railway, just five kilometers north of the old 17th parallel, a U.S. M117 bomb had waited in the soil for over half a century. A phone call from a commune military officer set in motion a morning of coordinated work that ended the threat safely.]]>

The M117 in situ, five meters from the railway in Linh Hải Village. Workers uncovered it 30 cm below the soil during bridge repairs.

LINH HẢI VILLAGE (6 May 2026) – On May 5, a phone call from a military officer of Vinh Thuy Commune, Quang Tri Province may have prevented a tragedy on Vietnam’s main North–South rail line. Today, the bomb is gone.

The discovery was made by workers repairing the Sa Lung railway bridge, who uncovered a suspicious unexploded ordnance (UXO) just 30 cm below the soil. The site in Linh Hải Village sits approximately 1.6 km south of the Sa Lung railway station and only 5 kilometers north of the 17th parallel — the historic Bến Hải River and DMZ line. During the war, this area was the heart of the Vĩnh Linh Special Zone, a territory that endured some of the heaviest aerial bombardments in history, forcing civilians to live in tunnel complexes for years. This M117 bomb had lain just 5 meters from the railway tracks for over half a century.

Provincial Ops Manager Mai Văn Việt and Team Leader Hoàng Kim Chiến identify the ordnance as a U.S. M117 aerial bomb.

Following a report to the QTMAC hotline, NPA/RENEW’s EOD team arrived before lunch on May 6. The investigation, led by Provincial Ops Manager Mai Văn Việt and Team Leader Hoàng Kim Chiến, identified the ordnance as a U.S. M117 aerial bomb.

– Total Weight: 340 kg (≈ 750 lb)
– Explosive Fill: 183 kg of Minol 2 or Tritonal
– Condition: Broken nose fuze and oxidized tail fuze

After stability was confirmed, the bomb was loaded onto a pickup for the journey to NPA/RENEW’s central demolition site at Hoi Yen village.

After confirming the bomb was stable enough for transport, the team carefully loaded the 750 pounds of steel and high explosives onto their pickup truck. It was relocated to NPA/RENEW’s central demolition site at Hoi Yen village, Vinh Dinh commune, where a demolition pit reinforced with 1,500 sandbags were being prepared. At 12:05, the M117 was safely destroyed. The resulting crater — 20 meters wide and 5 meters deep — offered a sobering answer to what would have happened to the railway and nearby families had it detonated in situ. By 13:00, the EOD team and supporting personnel had collected every fragment of shrapnel and cleared the site.

The crater after demolition — 20 meters wide and 5 meters deep. A sobering measure of what the Sa Lung bridge had been spared.

Back in Linh Hải, the trains kept running, and bridge workers resumed their jobs just 50 meters from where the threat once lay. No homes were damaged, and no one was hurt. The workers made the right call to the commune military. A morning of coordinated work ensured that call ended the only way it should: safely.

The M117 was the U.S. Air Force’s standard 750-pound general-purpose bomb of the Vietnam War, dropped in vast numbers by tactical aircraft — F-4 Phantoms, F-105 Thunderchiefs, A-6 Intruders, A-7 Corsairs — and, after 1968, by B-52 strategic bombers in their “Big Belly” configuration, which could carry up to 108 of them per aircraft. Tens of thousands fell on the railways and bridges of Vĩnh Linh district between 1965 and 1973.

The Theater History of Operations Reports (THOR) — a declassified U.S. Department of Defense database released in 2016 — records every documented U.S. air operation in Southeast Asia, including target coordinates, aircraft type, ordnance dropped, and mission identification numbers. Recent research by Dr. Philipp Barthelme at the University of Edinburgh has corrected a long-standing datum error in the THOR coordinates and combined the records with declassified KH-9 reconnaissance satellite imagery from March 1973. With those tools, individual strikes can begin to be matched to the craters and unexploded bombs found today. Fifty-three years after the war, the silent geography of the bombing is becoming, line by line, legible again.

Fifty years after the war, the work continues. Piece by piece, the land of Vĩnh Thủy is being returned to its people.

We sincerely thank the Government of the United States, through the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi, and the Government of Norway for their valuable support for our meaningful mission in Vietnam.

###

Loading

]]> 11186 A Simple Dream: The Story of a UXO Survivor and His Family in Vinh Linh https://landmines.org.vn/a-simple-dream-uxo-survivor-vinh-linh/ Fri, 17 Apr 2026 06:38:06 +0000 https://landmines.org.vn/?p=11158 In 1994, a bomb left over from the war took Nang's sight forever. But it could not take his will. With support from RENEW Center — funded by the Government of Ireland — he and his wife Hien built a new life in Vinh Linh, Quang Tri, proving that human resilience can overcome even the darkest moment.]]>

By Project RENEW | April 17, 2026

Mr. Nang and Ms. Hiền at their home in Vinh Linh, Quang Tri. Photo: RENEW

On a quiet street in Vinh Linh Commune, Quang Tri Province, a small sugarcane juice stall sits in front of a modest home. Every morning, a blind man and his wife begin their day here, side by side, doing what they can, together.

This is the story of Nang and Hien.

A Life Interrupted

Nang was born in 1972 in Tan Dinh Village, Vinh Chap Commune, Vinh Linh District, the youngest of six children in a family of modest means. After finishing ninth grade, he could not continue to high school. Instead, he chose to work, to help carry the weight of his family.

In 1994, at just 22 years old, his life changed forever.

While working as a daily laborer for an electricity corporation, Nang and two friends discovered an aircraft bomb left over from the war. They attempted to destroy the fuze by covering the bomb with dried wood and setting it on fire, hoping to sell the casing as scrap metal. After an hour of silence, they thought it was safe to return.

It was not.

The explosion killed one of his friends instantly. Nang survived. However, the blast took away his eyesight permanently. In a single moment, the young man who had worked to support his aging parents became entirely dependent on them.

The Long Road Back

For many UXO survivors, permanent disability means the end of economic independence. For Nang, it became the beginning of a different kind of journey.

He joined the Blind Association and learned massage therapy, a skill that would become his livelihood. At age 30, he opened his own massage therapy room at 26 Nguyen Du Street, Vinh Linh, a small but hard-won milestone. He worked diligently, saved carefully, and eventually purchased his own home.

“Born and grew up as a normal person, I unfortunately had a bomb and mine accident,” he recalls quietly. “I couldn’t have a job, and I had to stay at home.”

But staying home, for Nang, was never truly staying still.

A Love Story Across a Thousand Miles

In 2016, through a friend’s introduction, Nang met Hien, a young woman from Can Tho Province in the Mekong Delta, nearly a thousand kilometers away.

Hien had heard about this blind man from Quang Tri. She heard about his resilience, his determination, his refusal to be defined by his disability. And she made a decision that would change both their lives.

“I am a southern person, far away from Quang Tri,” she says, her voice warm and certain. “But knowing his resilience, I really admired him. I decided to make the long journey to join him here.”

They married in 2017. Today, they have a daughter, 20 months old, the quiet center of everything they do.

A New Chapter, With RENEW’s Support

Through the RENEW Center’s victim assistance program, funded by the Government of Ireland through the Irish Embassy in Hanoi, Nang’s family received a sugarcane juicing machine, enabling them to operate a small business from their home.

The division of labor between husband and wife is a study in partnership. Nang, who cannot operate the machine, scrapes and prepares the sugarcane sticks. Hien operates the juicer and serves customers. Together, they run a living, functioning small enterprise that serves their neighborhood.

On a recent morning, a customer stopped her motorbike in front of their home and ordered four glasses of juice to take away. It was an ordinary transaction and an extraordinary testament to what is possible when survivors receive the right support at the right time.

“With the support from RENEW Center and the Government of Ireland,” Hien says, “our family was provided with a sugarcane juicer machine. This helps us earn extra income to afford our family’s needs.”

A Simple Dream

When asked about her dreams for the future, Hien pauses and then smiles.

“We don’t dare to dream big,” she says simply. “We just dream that our daughter will grow up and study well. That is the greatest source of happiness for both of us.”

It is a dream so modest it could be missed. And yet for a blind man who rebuilt himself from nothing, and a woman who traveled a thousand miles for love, it is perhaps the most powerful dream of all.

25 Years of Walking Beside Survivors

Nang’s story is one of thousands supported by the RENEW Center’s victim assistance program over the past 25 years. Since its establishment, Project RENEW has worked tirelessly to clear explosive remnants of war from Quang Tri’s soil and to walk beside those whose lives have already been changed by them.

On this Vietnam’s Day for Persons with Disabilities, April 18, 2026, we honor not only Nang’s resilience, but the resilience of every survivor who has refused to be defined by the darkness of a single moment.

RENEW expresses its sincere gratitude to the Government of Ireland and the Irish Embassy in Vietnam for their generous and sustained support of UXO victim assistance in Quang Tri Province.

For more information about RENEW’s victim assistance program, please visit: landmines.org.vn

Loading

]]> 11158