Making Solomon Islands Safe 80 Years After the Battle for the Pacific
CISR
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(The HALO Trust) — The US Department of State has announced it will provided $1 million to The HALO Trust to launch a comprehensive unexploded ordnance project in Solomon Islands during 2023. The funding will allow HALO to locate and mark World War II legacy unexploded ordnance while providing essential training and capacity building to the explosive ordnance disposal unit of the Solomon Islands police.
Between 1942 and 1945, the United States and its allies fought Japanese forces for control of naval and air bases in Solomon Islands. The combination of fierce land battles, naval and artillery bombardment, aerial bombing, ammunition dumping, and munition store explosions have left Solomon Islands with a deadly and widespread, but largely uncharted legacy of contamination with unexploded and abandoned ordnance - widely known by the acronym 'UXO'.