Kunming’s City News does a retrospective on old guys who lost their legs stepping onto mines on the China Vietnam border. In the 87 people who made headlines, only 4 are alive. The old men live at Yunnan province’s Wenshan, Funing county, Tianpeng town, Sharenzhai village. Because they stepped on a landmine on the border with Vietnam they because famous as the “87 villagers who were left with 78 legs because of a land mine.”
Wenshan Mine Scars
In the morning of December 18, at 7am at Wenshan, Funing county, Tianpeng town, Sharenzhai village, which is a village that is only 600 meters from the national boundary, wakes up in the dawn. The Miao minority put on their clothes and leaves the house with a basket on their backs, some “foreign visitors” have also come to Tianpeng from the other side of the country. The main street is crowded with people doing business. An old man tells this reporter that today is a special day － for going to the market. At this moment it’s hard to imagine that 31 years ago, this was the front line for the war!
Though on the border of China and Vietnam, war had ceased long ago, and the people from the two countries have restored their friendliness, some things haven’t changed － and that’s the land mines that are scattered everywhere on this border. The mines that are buried on this border are antitank mines, anti-soldier mines, and 10 other different kinds of mines. Because the mines have been buried for a long time, the land has changed shape and forms a rarely seen mine field in the world, and it’s a mixed mine field.
From 1979, Wenshan’s mines have caused near 6,000 casualties, their ages range from 8 to 84, animals who have died are even harder to calculate. But the most famous case is still Wenshan, Funing county, Tianpeng town, Sharenzhai village’s 87 people who have 78 legs left.
As time has passed, 87 villagers are left with 4.
This reporter found out at the Funing county civil affairs bureau that although both Vietnam and China have taken action to look for mines, they have also created a border and warning sign around the mine area. But due to certain reasons, every year there will be one or two people who will have contact with a mine.
The Yunnan Temporary Method for War Casualties and Deaths Subsidization (云南省因战伤残亡人员救助资金管理暂行办法) gives temporary relief for people with casualties due to specific historic reasons, but is not the same as civil affairs bureau standard for the disabled. The lowest rate is 360 yuan a year and the highest 5,160 yuan a year (this is the 2010 standard).
“As for these specific groups, these standards are too low!” Funing county’s civil affairs bureau’s Li Liansu (李莲素) said to this reporter. “Although we helped with the fitting of their artificial limbs and daily lives, and we established the “Temporary Relief Fund” and “Fund for Helping Old Wounds” and we will also help alleviate employment problems for some of them, but it’s still not enough.”
- City Times (Chinese): Eighty people have been left with four
- Earlier on Danwei: Three decades after the Sino-Vietnamese War