Pétanque, a game similar to boules, has been popular here since the French introduced it in the former colony. But children often see the round, metal cluster munitions and mistake them for lost pétanque balls. “Many children pick up bombies thinking they’re toys, we hear this a lot,” says Ket. It’s why awareness and education programmes are as important as the land clearance operations, she adds.

Fucking hell.

Still, aid to clean up the UXOs pales in comparison to the cost of the bombardment – in 2023 dollars, the US spent $16 million every day bombing Laos for nine years. According to Legacies of War, funding to decontaminate now stands at just $45 million per year.

(16)(365)(9) = 52,560 million or 52.56 billion. 0.045/52.56 = 0.086%