HCM City (VNA) – A ceremony to mark the 63rd anniversary of the Day for Agent Orange (AO)/dioxin Victims (August 10) was held in Ho Chi Minh City on August 6.
Speaking at the event, held by the city's Association for Victims of AO/dioxin, Chairman of the association Major General Tran Ngoc Tho laid tress on the devastating impact of the catastrophic AO disaster that left hundreds of thousands of people dead, and many others struggling with fatal diseases and deformities.
He called on individuals and organisations to provide support for the victims, helping them overcome challenges and gradually integrate into the society.
Over the past time, the association, in collaboration with many organizations, have run various support programmes for AO victims, including presenting 7,600 gifts and providing medical examinations worth over 6 billion VND (238,700 USD) for 105 people.
On the occasion, a fund raising programme was launched to provide further support to AO victims.
On August 10, 1961, the US began spraying Agent Orange in Vietnam, in a campaign called “Operation Ranch Hand” to clear out the dense tracts of tropical jungles that served as the hideouts of the Vietnamese military forces.
Within ten years, it dumped about 80 million litres of herbicide on southern Vietnam, 61% of which was Agent Orange, containing about 366kg of dioxin, on of the most toxic chemicals known to man.
The chemical warfare conducted by the US destroyed more than 3 million hectares of forest, affected more than 22,000 villages with 4.8 million people directly exposed to toxic chemicals. Three million people have grappled with debilitating diseases including various types of cancers, neural damage and reproductive failures. Birth deformities and mental impairments continue to haunt even the third and fourth generations of descendants of those originally exposed to dioxin, nearly 50 years after the war ended./.
