Lethal remnants of Vietnam's war still claiming lives, 50 years on

ITV News

29-04-2025

Wednesday marks the 50th anniversary of the 'Fall of Saigon', which ended the Vietnam War. ITV News Asia Correspondent Debi Edward reports from Vietnam on the deadly legacy of that conflict
In a week that marks fifty years since the end of the war in Vietnam - the so-called 'Fall of Saigon' - we watched a de-mining team searching for the lethal remnants of that conflict, which are still claiming lives all these years later.
One de-miner had only gone a few paces before a familiar tone sounded on his metal detector.
They were working in Quang Tri province in southern Vietnam, the most bombed place on earth. It is a dangerous job, and we stood well back while he discovered what was in the ground.
Only shrapnel was recovered on the morning ITV News was invited to film, but in that one area of forest they have found more than two hundred unexploded bombs in the last six months.
We were following teams from Peace Trees, one of several American-funded organisations working to make the land safe again, and repair relations between Vietnam and the United States.
That dual mission has been threatened by Donald Trump's decision to shutter USAID (United States Agency for International Development).
A temporary 'Stop-Work Order' was issued at the end of January, created fear and uncertainty. Although operations have resumed, the organisation has had to scale back and focus on a smaller area, while they wait to find out about future funding.
Peace Trees has been operating for thirty years, since relations were normalised between the governments of Washington and Hanoi. After three decades, they have still only cleared 40% of the country.
The director of Peace Trees in Vietnam, Pham Thi Hoang Ha, told me the stop work order caused alarm in the organisation.
In the three-week period they had to cease working, they were still receiving calls from people who had found unexploded ordnances. They could only tell them to avoid the area and not touch what they had discovered.
Peace Trees and several other de-mining charities in the region act as an additional emergency service, providing a phone number people can call when they find a remnant of the war.
In recent years, extreme weather has exposed just how bombed the nation was and laid bare the level of threat that remains in the land. Massive floods in 2020 caused landslides that churned up some massive munitions.
Quang Tri's position, on what was the border between former North and South Vietnam, made it a major battleground during the war and one of the worst affected areas.
Not far from where the de-mining teams were working, we met Nhung and her daughter Trinh.
One summer's day in 2022, she was in the back garden when there was a big explosion at the front of the house, where Nhung's husband was fixing a doorway.
He had triggered an old cluster bomb. She found him covered in blood, killed instantly.
It has left her and her daughter all alone and facing more hardship in a life that had been difficult, until she met and married her husband. Nhung often looks at her wedding album to bring her some comfort, it contains the only photos she has of them together.
The Vietnam War also saw the world's biggest use of chemicals in warfare, including the incendiary substance, napalm.
In 1972 our cameras captured the notorious images of a young girl, naked, her clothes burned from her body, after napalm was dropped on her town Trang Bang.
The footage and a photograph of Phan Thi Kim Phuc, who became known as 'napalm girl', was shown around the world, causing outrage and fuelling stronger anti-war sentiment in the United States.
It added pressure on the Nixon administration in Washington to seek a peaceful resolution.
The use of napalm and agent orange, a pernicious herbicide also used to strip the land, have had the gravest of long-term effects.
We visited a support centre in the Cam Lo ward of Quang Tri, where we met children born with physical and learning disabilities, blamed on contamination in the food and water supplies.
The centre relies on funds from an American NGO, whose budget has been slashed by the State Department and USAID cuts.
They've told Nurse Thuong, that from the summer she will no longer receive their help. She told us that means she'll have no money to pay the staff, and no cash to buy simple things like milk for the children.
The daycare she gives to the children also allows their parents to work and earn money. Without it, that whole support system would collapse.
Programs supported by the US State department have been central to the reconciliation between Vietnam and the United States. Those hard-won diplomatic gains have grown in strategic importance as the US has looked for support in its efforts to counter China.
On Wednesday the military will parade through Ho Chi Minh City, as Saigon is now officially know, to mark the day it fell to the North Vietnamese.
Rehearsals for 'Reunification Day', as it's called in Vietnam, have drawn huge crowds.
And when it comes to reflecting on America's role, many will remember when the US last walked away, and the war in South Vietnam was lost.