While we were visiting Laos, we had a couple hours to kill before the foreign embassy opened at 1, so we took a taxi to a museum that a couple of people at the hostel we stayed at told us about. The museum is called COPE or Cooperative Orthotic and Prosthetic Enterprise. They create prosthetics for people in Laos who have lost limbs due to remaining cluster bombs buried and leftover from the war.
This is one bomb, and all of the smaller cluster bombs that are inside.
Lots of scrap metal that is left over from the war. Scrap metal is so valuable over here, that people will take the risk of going out and looking for bombs just to find the metal to sell.
Most of the people who are victims of the cluster bombs are farmers who are just tilling the ground and happen to hit a bomb. These are a couple of the makeshift legs that the native people would make to be able to walk again.
There were over 580,000 bombing missions that were deployed in Laos. Each of the red dots was where a bomb was dropped.
I still can't believe that there are so many live active bombs out there in Laos. COPE is really such an incredible organization and everyone should learn more about. It really opens your eyes to all of the opportunities that are out there in the world to help others.
If you want to learn more about COPE or learn how to make a donation, check out their webpage.
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