The Vietnamese and US people in New York raised funds for the Vietnamese Agent Orange (AO)/dioxin victims at a get-together on July 27, as part of a campaign to seek justice for the victims.

The event was jointly organised by the Vietnam Agent Orange Relief and Responsibility Campaign (VAORRC) and the Delegation of Permanent Representatives of Vietnam to the United Nations to mark the 50 th year when AO/dioxin began to be sprayed over areas in Vietnam (August 10, 1961).

Addressing the event, Ambassador Le Hoai Trung, Head of the Delegation of Permanent Representatives of Vietnam to the UN, thanked the US friends for their active support in seeking justice for the Vietnamese AO/dioxin victims and underlined Vietnam’s efforts in overcoming the consequences of this poison in Vietnam.

He also called on the US friends to promote their efforts in supporting the Vietnamese AO/dioxin victims at US forums.

At the event, the participants aunctioned paintings for fund-raising and wrote letters to the US parliamentarians, calling for support and assistance to the Vietnamese victims.

The delegation of US war veterans in Vietnam also presented photographs of the Vietnamese AO/dioxin victims, taken during their visit to the country last year.

Since the US troops sprayed AO/dioxin in Vietnam for the first time, over three million hectares of forests and rice fields and 26,000 villages have been infected with this toxicant.

Among five million people exposed to AO/dioxin, over three million ones are still suffering from diseases and leaving birth defects on their children./.