The conference was held by the Vietnam National Mine Action Center to review outcomes of its communications plan and award the contest “Raising awareness of prevention of accidents caused by bombs, mines and explosives left over from the war in Vietnam” in response to the International Mine Awareness Day (April 4).
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Major General Tran Trung Hoa, Commander of the Engineering Corps and General Director of the Vietnam National Mine Action Center, speaks at the event. |
Major General Tran Trung Hoa, Commander of the Engineering Corps and General Director of the Vietnam National Mine Action Center, chaired the event.
According to statistics revealed at the meeting, before the national mine action program was launched, 6.1 million hectares of land in Vietnam, accounting for 18.82 percent of the total national land area, were polluted with unexploded ordnance (UXO). In the 2010-2020 period, the settlement of UXO consequences reaped important results with the building of a system of legal documents, creating a complete and unified legal corridor to serve as a strong basis for the implementation of the mine action program.
In ten years, nearly 500,000 hectares of UXO-polluted land were cleared. A national map of UXO-polluted land was announced. In addition, more than 5,000 victims of UXO and related people received support to ease their difficulties in life. Attentively, over 3 million people and students learnt about the way to prevent UXO-caused accidents.
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Delegates at the conference |
Addressing the event, Major General Tran Trung Hoa emphasized that apart from UXO investigation, studies and clearance, support and care for UXO victims, the dissemination of information about the prevention of UXO-caused accidents to raise the public’s awareness is a very important task. Therefore, over the past time, the task has been carried out in diverse forms with practical activities by ministries, departments, provinces, cities, foreign embassies, international organizations and people.
General Hoa hoped that the Vietnam National Mine Action Center will continue to work with relevant agencies and units to make proposals to boost information dissemination, raise awareness, and have high consensus of all-level departments, social organizations, and people on the realization of overcoming consequences of post-war bombs and mines and explosives and prevent related accidents.
He laid stress on promoting dissemination of information, combining information dissemination and combat with suitable measures to make foreign countries, international organizations and people from all over the world understand more about the consequences of post-war bombs and mines, difficulties and challenges facing Vietnam and Vietnamese Party’s and State’s viewpoints on settlement of UXO consequences, gaining stronger support from the international community to speed up the process of the settlement.
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Presenting awards winners of the one-month contest “Raising awareness of prevention of accidents caused by bombs, mines and explosives left over from the war in Vietnam” |
Also at the event, the Vietnam National Mine Action Center awarded winners of the one-month contest “Raising awareness of prevention of accidents caused by bombs, mines and explosives left over from the war in Vietnam,” which was launched virtually on April 4. The contest attracted more than 1.3 million people, an increase of 80% against the contest launched in 2021. The organizers presented one first, two second, three third, and ten consolation prizes.
Translated by Chung Anh