Calls for international community to clean up unexploded ordnance in Solomon Islands

Eighty years after the Second World War, Solomon Islands is demanding former enemies Japan and the United States clean up their deadly unexploded bombs. Blasts from thousands of remaining unexploded ordnance, or UXOs, are still killing and maiming people in this former Pacific battlefield. Victims and their families receive little or no government support or compensation – and want the owners of the deadly weapons to take responsibility.

Maeverlyn Pitanoe survived when a WW2 artillery shell exploded beneath her. Source: SBS News / Stefan Armbruster