Dinh Ngoc Vu Operations Manager Project RENEW / NPA

An explosion of wartime ordnance on 7 Nov 2012 killed a 60-year-old metal collector in Dong Ha City. The victim, father of three children, died on the spot as he searched for scrap metal on a plot of land where vegetation had been burned off to prepare for new planting.

 A cooperative program between the government of Quang Tri and international NGOs to address the UXO threat.  Leverage of local resources, with international support and expertise, to assure optimal delivery of services.  Focus on building local capacity to sustain long-term mine action activities.  Currently operational in four districts of Quang Tri Province. RENEW Coordination Office Risk Education/Community Reporting Network Clearance and EODVictim AssistanceInformation/Database Community Development

 Community Reporting Network established in four districts consisting of trained volunteers from Youth Union and village chiefs.  CRN collaborators delivery safety messages and provide guidelines for safe behavior.  CRN supports RENEW’s EOD operations by finding and pinpointing the location of ordnance, identifying it by description and type based on MRE training that local people have received, and reporting it immediately.  Such UXO sightings activate a response from the EOD team, which sets its priorities by the hour based on urgency and level of danger.

 Trieu Long Commune, Trieu Phong ( ): Thien was visiting his family’s cemetery plot when he suddenly saw UXO lying near his father’s tomb. He called RENEW’s hotline number. Within hours, RENEW’s EOD Quick Response Team had responded to the call, removing an 82mm mortar from the cemetery.

 On a Sunday in May 2012, bricklayers building a new kitchen for a 70-year-old villager in Trieu Thanh Commune, unearthed tons of wartime munitions, all unexploded, while digging the foundation. The clearance task was carried out by RENEW's quick response team following the villager’s phone call to RENEW's free hotline number reporting the UXO discovery.

 Since 2010, the number of UXO sightings reported to Project RENEW has increased significantly, resulting in hundreds of UXO items being identified and safely removed by RENEW’s EOD teams.  In the first two months of 2013, people made 31 calls to RENEW’s teams who removed safely 58 UXO items

 World War I and World War II-era bombs are still found in European countries. Cleanup of every bomb and mine in Vietnam is a daunting and unachievable task.  The real goal is making Quang Tri safe – which means placing priority on removing the most visible, accessible and lethal ordnance: primarily cluster munitions and other items found on or just under the surface of the soil.  As long as local residents are on constant alert to report UXO discoveries and there is a system in place to immediately respond to such threats, deaths or injuries caused by UXO accidents can be reduced, minimized, and hopefully eliminated entirely.  That’s where MRE plays an integral role, in educating children and adults who must continue to live with the threat of UXO – how to live safely, how to avoid accident and injury.

 Thank you for your attention.  Any questions?