Vietnamese women strive to clear war-era mines

Dangerous mission: Members of an all-female demining group having a team briefing at a landmine site in the Trieu Phong district in Quang Tri province. (Right) Phan, a landmine victim, seen in his pepper farm in the Gio Linh district. — AFP

Quang Tri (Vietnam): Inching across a field littered with Vietnam war-era bombs, Ngoc leads an all-women demining team clearing unexploded ordnance that has killed tens of thousands of people – including her uncle.

“He died in an explosion. I was haunted by memories of him, ” Le Thi Bich Ngoc says as she oversees the controlled detonation of a cluster bomb found in a sealed-off site in central Quang Tri province.