All-women team clears wartime ordnance in Laos

By Nguyen Van Vinh

XIENG KHOUANG, Laos (Reuters Life!) - Eight months pregnant, Peng Souvanthon stands in the windy, sun-drenched hills of Laos instructing other women as they remove unexploded bombs from a war that ended more than three decades ago.

Peng, 25, leads the first all-women team who risk their lives to clear cluster bombs, shells, bullets and other ordnance with the Mines Advisory Group, a British charity with similar operations in former war zones all over the world.

"I expect to protect or save the lives of staff who deal with UXO (unexploded ordnance) and to help the community so they can farm more productively," Peng, dressed in all-green clothes and a wide-brimmed khaki hat, told Reuters Television in Nong Het in the northern province of Xieng Khouang.

Two team members using a hand-held detector found an old bomb, prompting Peng to get out a megaphone and a radio to alert nearby farmers to the danger as the site was marked.

The high-pitched message in Lao and Hmong languages pierced across the valley, where the gentle tinkling of cowbells is the most common sound.

The sparsely-populated country which has borders with China, Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia is one of the most-heavily bombed countries in the world.

Thousands of bombing missions in the 1960s and early 70s U.S. war in Southeast Asia left 15 of its 18 provinces contaminated with unexploded ordnance, which still kills and maims people and hinders agricultural development.

"Lao women contribute to the development of the country and want to be employed in the same jobs as men," said Willi Kubirske, technical field manager for MAG.