Advertisement
Japan
This Week in AsiaHealth & Environment

Solomon Islands residents live in fear of WWII bomb explosions

With more people on the islands killed or injured due to the munitions, a UN team calls for international efforts to remove the danger

3-MIN READ3-MIN
Listen
Billy, a resident of the village of Yandina in Russell Islands, Solomon Islands, sits next to unexploded munitions near his home. Photo: UNDP Pacific Office/Christopher Teasdale
Julian Ryall
After playing in a forested area in the Solomon Islands, Billy’s children often break out in rashes or itchy boils at home. A few years ago, the family became dizzy, suffered headaches and vomited – they believed it was due to the clams from nearby mangrove beds that they had eaten.

“It was lucky that we stopped the children from eating them,” said Billy, whose family lives a hand-to-mouth existence in the village of Yandina in the Russell Islands.

The 50-year-old farmer suspected that contaminants had found their way into the food chain through an unlikely source: unexploded ordnance left over from World War II.
Advertisement

But it could have been much worse. Three of his friends were killed in an explosion as they tried to get explosives out of a bomb to go blast fishing.

“Of course, we’re worried about the bombs, especially with the children,” Billy said. “When we find them, we tell our neighbours and the police. We warn the children and make sure nobody builds a fire there. We don’t know if there is a link between the bombs and the sicknesses, but it makes a lot of sense if there is.”

A woman stands next to a poster warning residents to be careful of unexploded munitions in the Solomon Islands. Photo: UNDP Pacific Office/Christopher Teasdale
A woman stands next to a poster warning residents to be careful of unexploded munitions in the Solomon Islands. Photo: UNDP Pacific Office/Christopher Teasdale

More than 80 years after Japan and the US stopped fighting in the Solomon Islands, aerial bombs and landmines, artillery rounds and mortar shells, phosphorus grenades and individual bullets still litter much of the archipelagic country. And they are becoming less stable and harder to locate.

Advertisement
Select Voice
Select Speed
1.00x