Điện Biên border guards disseminate information on national defence and security laws for students at Mường Nhé High School.  VNA/VNS Photo Xuân Tiến

ĐIỆN BIÊN — Villagers of Mường Nhé District in the northern mountainous province of Điện Biên are warmer this winter thanks to thick clothes and blankets local soldiers gave them.

Nearly 100 officers and soldiers of Regiment 741, Military Command of Điện Biên Province, travelled 200km this month to reach Pá Mỳ Commune where the temperatures often fall sharply in the winter to support villagers.

As well as giving villagers clothes and blankets for winter, the soldiers have helped the elderly repair houses and assisted local people to clean up and renovate roads.

Major Mùa A Khương, political chairman of Regiment 741, said the soldiers instructed villagers how to prevent winter diseases for themselves and their animals as well as disseminate Party and State policies on religion and free migration.

In one month at the village, the unit aimed to repair 5km of roads connecting villages, construct five wooden houses for old people living alone or from policy beneficiary families and build wooden bridges across streams, he said.

According to Giàng A Trừ, Secretary of Pá Mỳ Commune’s Party Committee, Pá Mỳ is a highland commune in extremely difficult conditions. Due to the mountainous terrain, for many years, local people have lacked land for production, increasing the rate of poor households. More than 80 per cent of local households are classified as poor.

Most of the villagers are of Mông ethnicity and work in the fields every day. Due to extreme weather, they often suffer from respiratory diseases. Soldiers teach local people preventive healthcare knowledge so villagers can protect themselves better in the winter.

“Villagers feel excited being helped by soldiers to repair houses and expand roads. It is always freezing in the winter here but this year we are no longer afraid of the cold weather thanks to cotton blankets and warm clothes,” said Chảo Phù Tin, a 68-year-old living in Huổi Pết Village.

Major Mùa A Khương said the mission was conducted by the unit every year, focusing on communes in extremely disadvantaged circumstances in border districts.

Điện Biên Province has a border of more than 455km with China and Laos. Nearly 25,500 households from 16 ethnic groups live in the province, mostly in difficult conditions.

Soldiers have performed well in dissemination work, earning trust from local people, helping change the appearance of the border areas in a positive direction, consolidating the people's confidence in the Party and State, upholding territorial sovereignty, political security, social order and safety in the border areas.

That is the premise for people in border areas to overcome difficulties and escape from poverty, Major Mùa A Khương said. — VNS