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Cancer has become an obsession of residents of Xuan Vinh Hamlet in Hoai My Commune of Hoai Nhon District in the central province of Binh Dinh.

The ‘mysterious’ deaths

According to Pham Thi Ngot, former head of the Hoai My Commune’s Healthcare Center, many years ago, a lot of people died of unknown reasons, known locally as ‘mysterious deaths”.

Most of the dead people were not old, but were middle aged. Though the deaths were ‘abnormal’, no one thought it was necessary to discover the reasons behind the deaths.

Later, Truong Hung, who specialized in shrouding corpses, discovered that many people in the village died of the same kind of disease.

Ngot, who was then in her office term, decided to learn more about the deaths, and she discovered that most of them died of cancer and had exactly the same symptoms.

“By 2008, more than 100 people in Xuan Vinh hamlet had died of cancer,” Ngot said.

More deaths of cancer have been reported recently. Le Van Nhan died three months ago because of liver cancer, while others died of skin, throat, tongue and blood cancer.

Two families had two members each die of the same disease.

According to the Hoai My Commune Healthcare Center, there are now six cancer patients.

Tran Huong, born in 1952, is one of them. He was diagnosed with lymphoma in 2002; since then he has received treatment at hospitals. When Huong returned to HCM City to check his health lately, he was told that remedies are no longer effective.

Former war zone still brings deaths 

During the war against the US, Xuan Vinh was a very fierce war zone. This area not only had bombings but also suffered from Agent Orange the US army sprayed during the war.

Tran Ngoc Son, chair of the Hoai My Commune People’s Committee, said the green leaves in the forests withered, and immature fruits turned red and fell after each spraying. 

Pham Thi Xuan, a resident of Xuan Vinh hamlet, whose house was situated next to Gieng Mountain, said she witnessed the spraying of Agent Orange when she was 17 and 18. 

“We saw the sky turning white because of the substance dropped from above, but we did not know what it was,” she said.

Xuan has realized that this was Agent Orange, a kind of herbicide, a very toxic substance to human health.