VIENTIANE
President Barack Obama of United State today met a survivor maimed by American bombs covertly dropped on Laos decades ago after pledging to help clean up a country he said was still living in the shadow of war.
Between 1964 and 1973 a secret CIA-led operation to cut supplies to the Vietcong resulted in two million tons of ordinance being dropped on Laos — more than the combined total dropped on both Japan and Germany during World War Two.
Much of the country is still littered with deadly munitions, including millions of cluster “bomblets” that kill to this day.
“For many people, war is something people read about in books,” Obama said while touring a facility where crutches and prosthetic legs of all sizes were strewn.
Among the people he met was Thoummy Silamphan who at the age of eight had a bomb rip though his right hand while he was foraging for bamboo shoots.