Suddenly, there was an explosion

IN 2001, Ko Aung and two farmer friends were walking home after a day in the fields near a village in Bago Region’s Phyu Township.

“Suddenly, there was an explosion,” said Aung. He did not immediately realise he had trodden on a landmine. “My friend told me, ‘Don’t look down.’ But when I looked down I saw that I did not have a right foot anymore. It was severed at the ankle.”

Aung was unable to work as a farmer after losing his foot and moved to Yangon to make a living as a beggar. He spends most of time on Pansodan Road, near Yangon Central Railway Station, a prosthetic limb by his side.

The blast shattered the bone to the knee and Aung had to have the lower part of his right leg amputated. After the incident, while he was still in Bago, Aung said an organisation that he did not know the name of provided him with the prosthesis and covered the cost of travelling to and from hospital. (Courtesy of frontiermyanmar.net)