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21 percent of Vietnam land still affected by war-era ordnance

Landmines and unexploded ordnance (UXO) are still in 6 million hectares of land in Vietnam or over 21. 1 percent of the country's land surface area, according to a UN agency in Vietnam on Wednesday.

"According to Vietnam's Ministry of Defense's Technology Center on Unexploded Ordnance and Landmine Disposal, around 600,000 tons of war-era ordnance remain in the ground throughout Vietnam... It is estimated that from the end of the Vietnam-American war in 1975 to the year 2000, 42,135 people were killed by landmines and UXO and a further 62,163 additional people were injured," the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said in a press release.
Read entire article at People's Daily Online (Beijing)