One day, five children went out to play. Only three came back. This short film and documentary photography series visualises the longstanding emotional toll of unexploded ordnance on child survivors in rural Laos.

Laos is the most heavily bombed country in the world: an oft forgotten legacy of the Vietnam war. As part of anti-communist operations, between 1964 and 1973, the US dropped an average of one planeload of bombs every eight minutes for almost a decade, the majority of which remain a live threat to this day. The US called this a ‘Secret War’: Laos was technically a neutral country. While Lao government support is offered directly to survivors, unexploded munitions have wide-reaching social implications that remain unacknowledged and unaddressed. Around half of all victims are children. The majority of adult survivors are men, leaving women to shoulder not only traditional domestic and care roles but the family’s economic burden largely by themselves.

This project provides an insight into the daily lives of those who have been directly and indirectly affected by unexploded ordnance: Bua, who farms cassava to support herself and her husband Lom who lost his arm and partial eyesight in 2017, 9-year-old Supah who still has shrapnel left inside his stomach, and Bounheuang, who witnessed the first bombs fall on his country three decades ago. Meanwhile, 11-year-old Layoud, who mistook a bombie for a pétanque ball, continues to mourn the loss of two of his best friends, leading his mother Lae to worry about how the incident will continue to affect her son’s mental health in the future.

Shot for UNDP, and part of the official selection of the Asian Film Festival 2024.