WWII bomb “backyard fireworks” are still scattered around Solomon Islands.
Dennis Phillip, a resident of Solomon Island, was manually tilling his land when he heard an odd clunk—one of the innumerable unexploded bombs that remain strewn around the tiny Pacific nation decades after World War II.
Between 1942 and 1945, Japanese and Allied soldiers carried out a brutal campaign throughout the Solomon Islands, killing tens of thousands of people.
Bombs they left behind are now interred beneath Phillip’s vegetable garden, football fields, schools, businesses, and residences.
Although there are conflicting records, estimates indicate that ordnance scattered around the otherwise picturesque countryside has killed scores and injured many more.
Bernadette Miller Wale recalls playing with bombs as a child living up outside of Honiara, the capital of Solomons.
“You’d see items, you’d touch it, move it, you weren’t really aware of the dangers that it posed,” she stated to AFP.
They were referred to as “backyard fireworks” and she and her companions would intentionally set them off.
These days Miller Wale spends her days trying to teach Solomon Islanders about the risks of explosive ordnance, work spurred by a catastrophic explosion near her house in 2021.
“The afternoon was a Sunday. “We heard the explosion while we were sitting with my daughter and some of my in-laws,” she said.
Two close friends who were cooking over a backyard bonfire—a common feature of Solomon Island life—were murdered in the explosion.
“The bomb was close to the surface, but no one realised,” she stated.
Given who is accountable, campaigners argue that the Solomons cannot and should not handle this issue alone.
More than two-thirds of the 50,000 bombs that have been discovered and destroyed in Solomon Islands in the last 14 years were made in the United States.
More than two-thirds of the 50,000 bombs that have been discovered and destroyed in the last 14 years were made in the United States.
Three percent came from Britain, Australia, New Zealand, or other nations, while another seventeen percent were Japanese.
‘Everyone’ affected
The Halo Trust, a worldwide NGO specialising in bomb removal, is one organisation attempting to assist.
They have modest but committed operations in the Solomon Islands.
In order to determine the main hotspots for unexploded munitions, the team is mapping the Solomons.
Mapped locations with unexploded ordnance are indicated by red regions.
Police have uncovered and destroyed more than 50,000 bomb sites since 2011, indicated by yellow dots.
Like seashells on a beach, it is difficult to go more than 100 meters in Honiara without coming across another yellow dot on the map.
And that’s only the start.
Solomon Islands’ subterranean WW2 bombs © Nicholas SHEARMAN, John SAEKI / AFP
“Everybody knows someone that has been affected,” Emily Davis, the head of The Halo Trust’s Solomon Islands operations, told AFP.
“They’ve either found something in their back garden, their children have, or they know somebody that was injured or someone who sadly died as a result of an item exploding.”
“Saturated”
The sheer volume of bombs at Bloody Ridge, outside Honiara, the scene of one of the worst battles between Japanese and American soldiers, has hindered efforts to establish the nation’s first national park.
According to Solomon Islands’ Ministry for Culture and Tourism’s Bjorn Svensson, the region is “saturated”.
He said that three hand grenades were discovered buried under the ground by excavation workers just a few weeks prior to AFP’s arrival.
He clarified, “They’re basically 10 centimetres under.”
“These are the smaller calibre, because it was closer, hand-to-hand fighting,” he explained.
“But down in the valley, there are a lot of larger calibre artillery shells.”
At the recent Pacific Islands Forum in Honiara, Solomon Islands Prime Minister Jeremiah Manele told regional leaders that the subject is “dear to me” and brought it up.
The sheer volume of explosives at Bloody Ridge, near Honiara, has hindered efforts to establish the nation’s first national park.
The US State Department is supporting Halo’s work in Solomon Islands, and its current funding is set to expire in June 2026.
“We’re working to provide a report that shows the scale of the problem and then work with Solomon Islands government and the police force to see how our work could, in the future, help tackle this issue,” Davis, from Halo, said.
She acknowledges that compared to her prior job in Laos, where over 1,500 employees labour across the Southeast Asian country, it is a much smaller business.
“But it’s growing,” expressed Davis.
“You never know, one day we could have that many staff working throughout the Solomon Islands.”