#Nguyen Thi Ly, 9, who suffers from Agent Orange disabilities. Award winning and renowed photographer Ed Kashi took her photograph during his July 2010 trip as a Vietnam Reporting Project fellow.
The photograph won him World Press Photo's 2'nd prize in Contemprary issues.
On 22 March 1965* US government confirmed that they used chemical weapons against North Vietnamese army during the Vietnam war.
The Vietnam war was one of the toughest war fought by US. They were up against guerrilla forces taking cover in the dense forests of Vietnam.
A chemical code-named Agent Orange was basically used as herbicide and defoliant by US military. US government initially stated that the herbicide was used over crop fields as those crops would feed the enemy North Vietnamese. This was also an effort to move peasants to US dominated cities,depriving guerillas the rural support.Further,the defoliants would destroy the cover of forest over the enemy.
Later it was found that Agent Orange was contaminated with an extremely toxic dioxin compound.
The Agent Orange was found to cause severe health effects on people getting in contact with it. In Vietnam,about 40000 were killed or severely effected due to Agent Orange. The effects were carried over to the next generation with about 500000 children born with congenital defects.
The spraying of these chemicals caused severe ecological disturbances too. Erosion, as result of loss of forest cover,soil losing fertile meant difficult reforestation.
US veteran who fought in Vietnam couldnt escape the damages done by it either. Many of them suffered from skin problems,cancer,digestive and respiratory disorders.
US military was again suspected of using "unusual" weapons,though not Agent Orange, in Iraq. Especially,the abnormal conditions of the dead bodies of armed enemies and civilians killed in Battle of Fallujah raised doubts and questions against US military once again.
-Swapnil
*- The date given here is taken from a website which maintains list of events that took place on a given date. The date couldn't be confirmed from secondary sources.Neverthless the events under consideration are the more important aspects.
#- The photograph shown is World Press Photo Award winning phorograph by Ed Kashi.
The authors do not intend to violate the copyrights. The authors thought that the issue at hand can not be more effectively justified by any other image.
