Laos

Laos is the most bombed country in the world, per capita, because of heavy aerial attacks in the 60s and 70s during the Vietnam War. From 1964-1973, more than two million tons of ordnance were dropped on Laos. The intensity and scale of this bombing was equal to one planeload of bombs every eight minutes,  24 hours a day, for nine years.  

Around 20,000 people—40 per cent of them children—have been killed or injured by cluster bombs or other unexploded items in Laos since the war ended. Soy, aged six, was playing with her friends when they discovered a cluster bomb. Not knowing how dangerous it was, they started to play with it. Moments later it exploded, killing one of her friends.

Our work is focused in Savannakhet Province, in the south of the country where multiple rooutes of the Ho Chi Minh Trail attracted the heaviest bombing during the Vietnam War. Today, 70 percent of the population of Savannakhet lives below the poverty line. Most families are very dependent on growing rice, but unexploded bombs make cultivating rice potentially life threatening.

From 2012 to 2025, HALO Laos has destroyed almost 130,000 explosives and taught over a quarter of a million people how to recognise and report dangerous items. Through survey and clearance work, HALO Laos has freed up an area equivalent to around 50,000 soccer pitches for safe community use.