Ban Naphia

Laos is the most bombed country, per capita, in the world with more than two million tons of ordnance dropped on it during the Vietnam War, up to 30% of which failed to explode on impact. More than 50,000 people have been killed and injured as a result of UXO incidents between 1964 and 2011. At least of 20,000 of them since the war ended.

In many villages gathering metal salvaged from either Unexploded Ordnance (UXO) or the cases that surround it has been a major source of income for them and one of the main causes of UXO accidents since the war ended more than 40 years ago.
In the village of Ban Naphia, a remote Tai Phouan village in mountainous Xieng Khouang Province, metalworkers such as Ms Vanthone and her family cast spoons and bracelets made from recycled aluminium sourced from Vietnam War debris and melted in an earthen kiln.

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