Vietnam War-era shell kills four children

HANOI, Vietnam A mortar shell left from the Vietnam War has exploded in a southern village, killing four children and seriously injuring five other people.

Hieu Nghia village official Le Van Giang says three children aged 4 to 11 died at the scene Sunday afternoon and a 6-year-old boy died at the hospital. The blast seriously injured two other children and three men.

Giang said the shell exploded when the children who found the shell from bamboo brush were playing with it. A villager found the shell five years ago when dredging a canal.

The village in Vinh Long province was a communist stronghold during the war.

Vietnamese government figures show unexploded ordnance have killed more than 42,000 people since the war ended in 1975.

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[cbsblogger]

War is always such a tragic waste, and it always instigated by politicians wanting only to build or hang on to their power base and wishing to unite the people behind the untold and unseen corruption that benefits the rich and powerful while killing the masses. This war killed 58K Americans and many more Vietnamese and it accomplished nothing. It wasn't fought to protect our USA freedoms or to free the South Vietnamese as the powers that be typically claim. Nothing changed because of this war except for the waste of resources, families of those killed, and the massive environmental destruction such as agent orange and the lives of these kids. We need to see more of these "leaders" that use propaganda to initiate such wars facing Nuremberg type trials when they end.

[FrankTrades]

Sad that such a great government in 'Nam could not identify and neutralize all such conditions after they won the war.

[BillS553]

So, the first step should be to become informed, before you make ramdon statements. The village mentioned in the article is in Southern Vietnam, south and east of Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon). So, the probability of the mortar round being US is strong but not completely confirmed. As was mentioned there were numerous countries involved in the US lead war in Vietnam, including China and Russia. It is a very unfortunate that anyone had to die because of this shell. The person, as stated in the article, that found the shell 5 years ago, should have turned it in then and no one would have died. I my humble opinion, I see fault on all sides but particularly, the individual who had it last. That's the opinion of a Vietnam Era veteran.

[mgunn89512]

We dropped an unbelievable number of bombs on them that kill them to this day and now we want to pivot back? I think we've done enough damage.

[MidRoadAlone]

Being a "Blame America First" liberal, you naturally assume this was an American mortar shell. The Viet Cong and NVA fired hundreds of thousands of Russian and Chinese mortar shells, sometimes even at villages friendly to the Americans.

[bilrobi1]

You are correct. I'm a Vietnam Veteran. We dropped many tons of bombs on North Vietnam. I'm under the impression that this area is near Hanoi. We also did our share of damage to South Vietnamese civilians. In this case however,it not likely an American mortar round would have made it that far north. It doesn't make things any less tragic. Wars always leave their aftermath. We owe it to ourselves and the world community to clean up after ourselves in areas where we can.

[Goldenfozz]

I had no idea that the Viet Nam war still went on.

[bilrobi1]

Please tell us you're trying to be amusing.