The elementary school boys and their fellow-pupils were weeding vegetable beds on the school ground when one found an unexploded bomb from the Vietnam war era and played with it.
The bomb exploded, killing the boy and a friend and injuring four other pupils.
UXO-Lao, which was set up in 1996 to remove unexploded ordnance scattered around the country - a legacy of the Vietnam war, receives over 12 million dollars a year from international organizations and the U.S. However, more financial aid is needed, or UXO-Lao might have to suspend its operations. It still has more than 350,000 hectars of land to clear and reclaim.