SYDNEY -- For four years, Solomon Islander Maeverlyn Pitanoe has woken up every day in pain. On Mother's Day in 2021, an unexploded World War II artillery shell suddenly went off beneath a barbecue pit she was tending for a church fundraising event, leaving her with "scars everywhere except for my face."
Indo-Pacific
Solomon Islands struggles with unexploded World War II ordnance
Legacy of US-Japan fighting continues to maim, physically and psychologically
Maeverlyn Pitanoe, who was left with severed fingers and burn scars all over her body after a UXO accident in 2021, which killed two other people, speaks to Nikkei Asia on Sep 12 at her home in Fishing Village, a suburb of Honiara in the Solomon Islands. (Photo by Rurika Imahashi)
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