Trieu Phong, Quang Tri (9 April 2021) — An explosive ordnance disposal team of NPA/RENEW today safely destroyed nearly 500 explosives at the central demolition site in Trieu Trach Commune. Earlier, these explosives were removed from a cache detected on a clearance site in Vinh Linh District.
According to Tran Minh Hieu, leader of the battle area clearance team No. 8, his team on Thursday detected a cache of 490 mortar rounds, four grenades, and one rocket in a plantation of Huynh Cong Tay Village of Vinh Tu Commune — the highest number of explosives NPA/RENEW teams have ever found in a working day.
“All of the mortar rounds were identified unfired,” said team leader Hieu. “Half of them still had plastic coverings, and stacked together under a depth of over one meter.”
NPA/RENEW operations management later deployed an explosive ordnance disposal team to the clearance site for providing support. The removal of all these weapons to the disposal site in Trieu Phong was completed just a few hours before the United Nations Security Council meeting on mine action kicked off at 08:00 EDT, 8 April. Nguyen Thi Dieu Linh, NPA Provincial Program Manager at Project RENEW, was among key briefers to the Security Council’s open debate on mine action and sustaining peace.
Since Nov 2020, six battle area clearance teams of NPA/RENEW have completed clearing over 1.9 million square meters of land in Vinh Tu Commune, found and safely destroyed 596 cluster munitions and 872 other explosives. 875 people of Huynh Cong Tay village who are making their living on acacia plantation and other vegetables will be direct beneficiaries after NPA/RENEW teams complete their task and release safe land to the community in May.
NPA implements survey and clearance activities in Quang Tri Province in close cooperation with Project RENEW, under a partnership with the Quang Tri Provincial Department of Foreign Affairs. This work is funded by the U.S. Department of State and the U.K. Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office.
Project RENEW was established in 2001 as a joint effort between the government of Quang Tri Province and interested INGOs to “restore the environment and neutralize the effects of the war”.
Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA) has worked in Vietnam since 2007 and collaborated with national and provincial authorities to implement capacity development, survey and clearance projects in Hanoi, Quang Tri, Thua Thien Hue and Quang Binh provinces.
