Agent orange victims pictures

Nga came online with her silver hair in rollers."My hair is way too long now. I have not made time for a haircut yet," she said, explaining the hair rollers in a video call with VnExpress International from her apartment in Paris, where she lives by herself.At almost 80, Nga gives herself no time to rest. She is busy with indictments, statements, speeches and interviews, especially since last January when her name became a byword for a doughty fighter.On January 25, Nga’s profile shot up among millions interested in the Vietnam War in general and Agent Orange in particular. That day, she officially filed a suit against 14 companies that supplied the U.S. Army with the notorious, toxic defoliant during the Vietnam War. Studies have shown that they knew it was toxic but decided to make it for profit anyway. The case was filed in the southern Paris suburb of Evry.The defendants in Nga’s case are on top of a Who’s Who list in international agriculture, like Monsanto and Dow Chemicals. She has accused them of being responsible for physical ailments and mental suffering sustained by her, her children and countless others, as well as for severe damage done to the environment."This is not my trial alone, this is not my fight alone. By now, the name Tran To Nga should only be a symbol. This is a fight for the people, for truth," she said.Nga suffers from certain typical Agent Orange effects, including type 2 diabetes and an extremely rare insulin allergy. She has contracted tuberculosis twice and a cancer once. She lost one of her daughters to a malformation in the heart. She has also suffered Alpha Thalassemie, which results in impaired production of hemoglobin, the molecule that carries oxygen in the blood, and her daughter and grandchild have the syndrome. Tran To Nga during a rally to call for justice for Agent Orange victims in Paris, 2019. Photo by Collectif Vietnam Dioxine. Nga, a naturalized French citizen now, has been fully backed by Vietnam in …

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Colonel General Nguyen Chi Vinh, Deputy Minister of National Defense, told a Friday meeting Vietnam targets to complete dioxin remediation across all contaminated areas that have been detected by 2025.Affected areas include Bien Hoa Airport, the most contaminated spot in the country in Dong Nai Province, neighboring Ho Chi Minh City, and A So Airport in central Thua Thien-Hue Province.Related agencies will continue to investigate the current status of toxic chemical and dioxin residues in other areas sprayed during the war that last from 1955 to 1975.Vietnam is expected to develop its own method of cleaning up dioxin, with all such projects thus far completed in collaboration with the U.S.Between 1961 and 1971, the U.S. army sprayed some 80 million liters of Agent Orange, compounds of dioxins and dioxin-like mixtures, over 78,000 square kilometers (30,000 square miles) of southern Vietnam.Dioxin, a highly toxic chemical contained in the defoliant, stays in the soil and at the bottom of lakes and rivers for generations. It can enter the food chain through meat, fish and other animals, and has been found at alarmingly high levels in human breast milk.Between 2.1 to 4.8 million Vietnamese were directly exposed to Agent Orange and other chemicals, which have been linked to cancers, birth defects and other chronic diseases.In the past 10 years, dioxin remediation has been completed at Da Nang International Airport in central Da Nang City and Phu Cat Airport of central Binh Dinh Province.The 2025 target of Vietnam’s national defense ministry also includes clearing about 800,000 hectares of land contaminated with bombs, mines and explosives left from the war.In the 2010-2020 period, the total area to have been surveyed and cleared of bombs and unexploded ordnance (UXO) was more than 500,000 hectares (1.23 million acres). Of this, 400,000 hectares had been cleared by the ministry and the rest, by international organizations.More than VND12.624 trillion ($546.23 …

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Rural women blaze trail to prosperity (07-03-2005) BAC GIANG – Overcoming poverty and challenges posed by life, the women from a rural commune of Bac Giang northern province have laboured to prosper from family farming. A case in point is Nguyen Thi Nhien, 43, from Tu Mai Commune of Yen Dung District, who now owns a modern house with all amenities, and has her two children studying in universities. Nhien married a war invalid, who had lost an eye, an arm and a leg, in 1982. She was then staying in a bamboo-roof house, farming a plot of land given by their parents. "At the age of 20, I volunteered to live with a war invalid. Life was very hard because our parents were poor, and not in a position to help us," she said. Life became more complicated as they had two children within three years. She now had to take care of the husband, children, work in the field, and do extra jobs to support the family. Taking note of the dire situation, the commune’s authorities helped her build a cement house and allocated nine sao of farming land (one sao equals to 360sq.m) to the family. Adept at farming, she soon learnt from the experiences of other farmers and carefully selected categories of rice seeds suitable to the soil and applied advanced cultivation methods. She also grew vegetables. Within years, she had an annual output of three to four tonnes of rice, maize and potato, enough to support her family and the education of two children. From a VND1 million loan from the commune’s Blind Association in 1996, she bought a cow, and now has a herd of 10. "There were times when there was no food to eat. But that has changed,’’ she says. Strength of character When another woman Than Thi Nhu, lost her husband and two children from food-poisoning ten years ago, life had come to a standstill. Overcoming grief, Nhu married a soldier and Agent Orange victim with five children. The children were also suffering from the aftereffects of AO. "Initially, I was sad …

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