Hanoi - The German Foreign Ministry has pledged more than 1 million dollars to help clear land mines and unexploded ordnance in central Vietnam, the embassy said Friday.
The work would be done through the non-governmental organization International Solidarity of Germany in close cooperation with Vietnamese authorities.
Germany has contributed nearly 8.5 million euros (12 million dollars) to mine clearance in Vietnam in the past 13 years. In that time, the NGO has cleared more than 1,500 hectares in the region, freeing up valuable land for farming and developing infrastructure.
The organization also provides vocational training and support to help rehabilitate people maimed by mines and bombs as well as other disabled people in the area.
More than three decades after the Vietnam War, unexploded ordnance still threatens the lives of people in rural Vietnam on a daily basis, especially in the central provinces.
According to the Vietnam-based mine charity Renew, out of the 15 million tons of munitions dropped by the United States during the conflict, 10 per cent failed to detonate on impact.
Many were dropped over the border in neutral Cambodia to disrupt supply lines and bases thought to be operated by the Vietnamese forces opposing the US.
Millions of rounds of cluster munitions, mines, grenades and bombs, many of them still deadly, are now scattered around houses and gardens, along roadways or buried just under the surface or deep in the earth in both countries.
Since the end of the war in 1975, more than 100,000 people have been killed or injured by the unexploded military ordnance in Vietnam and Cambodia.
Renew, which is funded by US and Norwegian aid, estimated 100 people are killed by landmines each year in Vietnam. Many are scavengers who mistake the ordnance for scrap metal.
Many of the victims are children, the organization said, either scavengers themselves or those who mistake the objects for toys.
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