Southeast Asia
Early color work from the Philippines, Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia
US warplanes dropped an estimated 300,000 tons of bombs in Northern Laos during the Vietnam conflict. In Xieng Khouang province alone, that translates to about 2 tons per inhabitants.
The bombings were part of a CIA-run, covert action directed at stopping the North Vietnamese supply routes along the Ho Chi Minh trail. Laos was hit by an average of one B-52 bomb-load every eight minutes, 24 hours a day, between 1964 and 1973. US bombers dropped more ordnance on Laos in this period than was dropped during the whole of WWII. Of the 270 million cluster munitions, or ‘bombies’ to the locals, that rained down, particularly on Xieng Khouang province, 80 million failed to explode, leaving a deadly legacy.
Myanmar, also known as Burma, has been troubled by civil war since the end of British colonial control in 1948. Decades of strife between tribal minority groups and the government have resulted in large numbers of internally displaced persons and mass human rights abuses.
For most of its independent years, the country has been gripped by rampant ethnic conflict and Myanmar’s multitude tribal groups have been caught up in one of the world’s longest running ongoing civil wars.
Photography by Alan Dejecacion
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