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Cam Lo, Quang Tri (28 August 2015)

A young man in Quang Tri Province was lucky that an explosion of wartime ordnance on Thursday left him with only slight injuries.

23-year-old Tran Van Du was digging holes to prepare for planting acacia seedlings when his hoe hit an unidentified item of ordnance that detonated, shredding the blade of his hoe and causing a two-centimeter cut to his left leg below the knee.  A piece of shrapnel also penetrated his leg and lodged there.

The accident happened about four p.m.  An hour later, the young man was at Quang Tri General Hospital where doctors operated on his injury, successfully removing a small piece of shrapnel from his leg.

The accident occurred in Tan Hoa Village of Cam Tuyen Commune on land that had been previously bulldozed.  The unidentified ordnance was struck at depth of about 20cm so it was not visible to Du as he was working the field.

The fifth child of a family of six children, Du dropped out of school when he was 14 years old to work and help his family.  His father, Tran Thanh Dai, said, “My son then spent some years working in Ho Chi Minh City, and now he has returned home to help us with farming work.”

In June this year, another explosion of an unexploded projectile killed a 42-year-old farmer  near his family’s rubber farm in Trung Son Commune of Gio Linh District.

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Project RENEW
Restoring the Environment and Neutralizing the Effects of the War
Dự án Phục hồi Môi trường và Khắc phục Hậu quả Chiến tranh
Project RENEW Coordination Office
Kids First Village, 185 Ly Thuong Kiet Street, Dong Ha City, Quang Tri Province, Vietnam
053 3858 445 tel / 053 3858 442 fax
projectrenewvietnam@gmail.com / www.landmines.org.vn
Ngo Xuan Hien, Communications & Development Manager, 0915 352 565 mobile
Email: ngoxuanhien@gmail.com