Solomon Islands

Solomon Islands is a large archipelago northeast of Australia and east of Papua New Guinea. In total, it is comprised of approximately 1,000 islands and atolls, of which 147 are inhabited. During World War II, the Japanese Imperial Army captured the Solomons in the aftermath of the attack on Pearl Harbour. Over the two and a half year period that followed, the United States and its allies fought hard to recapture them.

The land battles on Solomon Islands were brutal and involved heavy naval, air and artillery bombardment, as well as close quarter fighting with mortars and grenades. Guadalcanal is one of the Solomons' six main islands and is also where the capital city of Honiara sits. This island was the site of a major campaign of the Pacific War during World War II, fought over six months between the Japanese and Allied troops. The result has been a lasting legacy of unexploded and abandoned ordnance contamination that continues to this day.

There is no formal mechanism for recording accidents caused by UXO in Solomon islands and there is no clear understanding of the scale of contamination. However anecdotal evidence suggests that even activities as simple as lighting fire pits for barbecues are hazardous.

The absence of a systematic survey and the lack of reliable casualty data has prevented the government from developing a national strategy for addressing the problem or making a strong evidence-based claim for international assistance.

With funding from the US Government, HALO began operations on Solomon Islands in June 2023 by conducting a survey of the Bloody Ridge, an area 1km in length on the island of Guadalcanal. This was once the site of a gruelling two-day battle in September 1942 between the Japanese Army and Allied forces on the ground.

Part of HALO’s clearance approach has been to use recovered battlefield information alongside clearance records from the Royal Solomon Islands Police Force to guide where we first deploy our teams. We have also engaged with community elders by reaching out to them directly to explain our work. This has enabled us to organise open meetings at which men and women have been able to share information with HALO on the location of “bombs” and establish an open-door policy to encourage locals to further report any suspected unexploded ordnance (UXO).

HALO is also collaborating with the Japan Association for Recovery and Repatriation of War Casualties and the US Defense Prisoners of War/ Missing in Action Accounting Agency, both organisations seek the remains of missing soldiers from WWII. Old maps, military records, and community liaison are important to all three organisations - whether searching for human remains or unexploded ordnance. 

The island’s population expanded following the war. Now there are over 150,000 people living on Guadalcanal alone with approximately 1,800 people living on and around what was once the site of the Bloody Ridge battle. From the beginning of HALO’s operations in Solomon Islands,  HALO has delivered Explosive Ordnance Risk Education (EORE) as part of the open community meetings. In December 2023, with funding from the German government, HALO began distributing leaflets, posters, and school exercise books as part of this risk education. All EORE materials include the dos and don’ts stipulated by the police, including “don’t build fires”—such is the density of contamination and the threat it poses.

Shortly after HALO's arrival in Guadalcanal's capital city, a nine-year-old boy approached one of our teams. In his hand he carried a Japanese Type 91 grenade which he handed over to the HALO team, a grenade which was fired from the end of a rifle more than seventy years before he was born. This stark reminder of the dangerous legacy of the flighting decades ago underlies the importance of HALO's work in Solomon Islands.