Vietnam
Casualties
Casualties Overview
|
All known casualties by end 2015 |
Approximately 105,000 mine/explosive remnants of war (ERW) casualties |
|
Casualties in 2016 |
9 (2015: 7) |
|
2016 casualties by outcome |
2 killed; 7 injured (2015: 3 killed; 4 injured) |
|
2016 casualties by device type |
9 unexploded submunitions |
Details and trends
Nine new casualties were recorded in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in 2016, all caused by unexploded submunitions. Seven casualties in Quang Binh province were recorded by Mines Advisory Group (MAG) (four men, two boys, one woman). One was killed and six were injured.[1] One of the casualties was a MAG deminer, who was injured.
In Quang Tri province, one deminer was killed and one injured during an accident on a cluster bomb site.[2]
Data on casualties caused by mines and ERW has not been collected systematically in Vietnam.[3] The nine casualties recorded for 2016 is a slight increase on the seven recorded for 2015. These last two years represented a significant decrease from the 24 casualties reported for 2014,[4] 50 in 2013, and 73 reported in 2012. However, with no nationwide data collection mechanism, it was not possible to confirm if this was in fact a trend of casualties decreasing annually.
At least 105,059 mine/ERW casualties (38,970 killed; 66, 087 injured; and two unknown survival outcome) have been recorded in Vietnam. It was reported that from 1975 to the end of 2007, the Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs (MoLISA) recorded 104,701 mine/ERW casualties (38,849 killed; 65,852 injured).[5] In Quang Tri, the only province where there was a mine action database of casualties, 8,526 casualties (3,425 killed; 5,101 injured) were recorded to May 2016. These casualties may be included in the cumulative total.[6]
Cluster munition casualties
At least 2,134 casualties from incidents involving cluster munition remnants were reported as of the end of 2016. However, one estimate put the likely total of such casualties as high as 34,000.[7] In many cases, the type of explosive remnants causing casualties could not be determined and all these were recorded as ERW casualties, although there were likely many among them caused by unexploded submunitions.[8] In addition, numerous casualties during cluster munition strikes have been reported.[9] A 2012 study of data for the period 1975–2009 found that 1% of the population of Quang Tri province had been involved in mine/ERW incidents and that unexploded submunitions were the main cause.[10]
[1] Email from Le Anh Thu, MAG, 22 May 2017.
[2] “Bomb clearance expert killed by blast during central Vietnam mission,” Thanhnien News, 19 May 2016.
[3] Email from Resad Junuzagic, Country Director Vietnam, Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA), 26 June 2017.
[4] Casualty data provided by Toan Quang Dang, Program Manager, Mine & Cluster Victim Assistance Program, Project RENEW, 2 March 2015.
[5] Email from Dang Quang Toan, Project RENEW, 9 August 2008. The additional casualties for 2008 through 2015 were reported by the Monitor. See the Vietnam country reports and profiles on the Monitor website. The Vietnamese government press reports that official figures show that mines/ERW caused 104,000 victims between 1975 and 2000 (42,000 killed and 62,000 injured). See, Socialist Government of Viet Nam online newspaper, “Bomb and mine clearance plan approved,” VGP News,14 May 2013.
[6] Email from Le Anh Thu, MAG, 25 May 2017.
[7] This estimate assumes that some 33% of all mine/ERW casualties reported since 1975 were likely to have been caused by unexploded submunitions. Handicap International (HI), Circle of Impact: The Fatal Footprint of Cluster Munitions on People and Communities (Brussels: HI, May 2007), p. 39; and Monitor analysis of annual casualty data.
[8] Email from Dang Quang Toan, Project RENEW, 28 June 2008.
[9] See for example, documentation on deaths and injuries caused by cluster munitions in the International War Crimes Tribunal–1967.
[10] Tran Kim Phung, Le Viet, and Hans Husum, “The legacy of war: an epidemiological study of cluster weapon and land mine accidents in Quang Tri Province, Vietnam,” Southeast Asian Journal of Tropical Medicine and Public Health, Vol. 43, No. 4, July 2012, pp. 1,036–1,041.