Half a century ago, as war raged in Vietnam, an isolated community in the jungles of northern Laos was recruited by the CIA to help fight the Pathet Lao – the Laotian equivalent of Vietnam’s Viet Cong. In 2008, Al Jazeera's Tony Birtley trekked uphill for more than two days through dense forests in search of the Hmong who were left behind. He found a settlement of fewer than 200 people, most born after the war but still living as their ancestors had. More than 10 years later, Rewind spoke to Birtley about how he came to cover the story and what has happened to the Hmong since.
