VietNamNet Bridge – The most hardened hearts would have to be stunned by pictures of Agent Orange victims taken by photographer Philip Jones Griffiths at the Tu Du Obstetrics Hospital in 1980 and 2002.
The research facility of Tu Du Hospital, HCM City, keeps many bodies of the babies who died from Agent Orange, 1980.
A deformed conjoined twins due to Agent Orange is preserved in formaldehyde solution at Tu Du Hospital.
Many images that people can hardly imagine, for example a child with two faces.
Bodies that are not in human form.
Perhaps the heartbreaking images like this can move the most stony hearts.
A baby born with a small brain, cleft lip, deformed ears and rib cage in Tu Du Hospital. The baby died a day later.
The face of the young woman who gave birth to the baby in the previous picture.
The son of Ms. Le Huu Thin was born with no brain at the Vietnam-Germany Hospital in Hanoi, 1980. Her husband, Nguyen Van Oanh, was a driver on the Ho Chi Minh trail during the war.
22 years later – in 2002, Philip Jones Griffiths returned to Tu Du Hospital. The research centre of the hospital was added with new specimens.
Decades have passed but the pain is still intact.
This girl was born in May 2000 and abandoned at Tu Du Hospital. The expression on the face and skull of the baby are typical for Crouzon syndrome, a result of Agent Orange.
The baby girl was brought from Vinh Long province to the Tu Du Hospital by her mother, Ms. Dang Thi Hong Khuyen. She suffered from innate encephalitis due to Agent Orange and died a month after this picture was taken.
Tran Minh Anh was born in September 1994 in Long An Province and was left in front of Tu Du Hospital. Agent Orange’s legacy left him paralyzed and suffering from a skin disease that was very difficult to treat.
Young doctor named Ly Ngoc Hoang Tuan Phi was feeding a baby who suffered from the legacy of Agent Orange at Tu Du Hospital.
In 1961-1971, the U.S. military sprayed more than 18.2 million gallons of Agent Orange on more than 10% of the land area in South Vietnam, which poisoned and destroyed millions of hectares of forest and agricultural land.
In addition to the harm to the environment, these chemicals also caused serious consequences for the lives and health of many Vietnamese, even to the generations born after the war.
Currently, about 4.8 million people in Vietnam were exposed to Agent Orange/dioxin.
Hundreds of thousands of them died. Millions of people and their descendants have been living with the diseases and poverty due to Agent Orange.
The pain of Agent Orange will haunt Vietnamese in many years to come.
Source: Kien Thuc