In April 2012, Nengyong Yang, a farmer in Laos, was cutting a tree in his field, preparing to plant corn. As Nengyong was hacking away, a bomb lodged in the trunk of the tree exploded in his face. Nengyong survived, but lost both his eyesight and his ability to provide for his wife and four children. Two months later, his wife found his lifeless body hanging from a tree.

Nengyong is just one of roughly twenty thousand people who have been injured or killed by unexploded ordnance (UXO) in Laos since 1973. The UXO is the legacy of intensive American bombing of Laos from 1964 to 1973, when the United States dropped two million tons of bombs on the country — more than twelve times the amount of bombs dropped on Japan during World War II. Laos is, per capita, the most heavily bombed country on Earth.

In the United States, the intervention in Laos is known as “the Secret War” because the government concealed everything about its activities. But to Laotians, the effects of the American bombardment have never been a secret.