In early October the BDF Bomb Squad was deployed out to San Jose Palmar Orange Walk following a horrific accident involving an unexploded ordnance that detonated, killing 25 year old Jose Valencia, who had been commissioned by former area rep David Burgos, to weld hooks onto a bomb. Burgos wanted to display it as an ornament - which is not uncommon in the north, but both men were unaware of just how dangerous the thought to be an inert bomb was. Since then the BDF has continued to recover more bombs, and today we spoke with the Ministry of Defence CEO about their operations. Jomarie Lanza has this story.
At first people thought they were harmless military relics, found scattered all across rural areas in Orange Walk.
But it took a freak accident that claimed the life of a 25-year-old welder two months ago for the public to grasp the real danger posed by unexploded ordnance.
Once the danger was so graphically underscored, the BDF Bomb Squad wasted no time working with civilians to recover as many of these UXO's as they could.
Francis Usher, CEO, Ministry of Defense
"So Since then I think that unfortunate incident put the entire issue on the map and since then we have had our explosive ordnance disposal team go countrywide. We have been getting calls and we have also known or we have gotten calls and information about the location of a few others and since then we have safely extracted and disarmed those UXO's so we have gotten a total of 9 so far and we do know the location of at least one other one in the Baldy Beacon area and so those have been stabilized and will be destroyed."
But still there may be a few more out there, and no one knows where for sure, and just how many are left.
Francis Usher, CEO, Ministry of Defense
"So I think that so far the ones we have gotten the large majority of them have come from the Orange Walk District, throughout the entire district, we have also gotten one on the road in the Cayo district on the road to Belmopan and also well Baldy Beacon is also in the Cayo District and one in Corozal but I would say the concentration, the large majority of those have come from the Orange Walk district so far."
So what happens to the 9 they have uncovered? Usher says the process to dispose of them is completely safe and far from residential areas.
Francis Usher, CEO, Ministry of Defense
"So we have what we refer to as a blasting pad in the Baldy Beacon area where our subject matter experts are explosive ordnance disposal team safely destroys these ammunitions so they are safely and well outside of any, no one is even near where we go to destroy these ammunitions or training bombs."
But who left these devices, and how many more of them are still out there isn't Usher's greatest concern, he is more focused on finding the rest of them before they can cause any more damage
Francis Usher, CEO, Ministry of Defense
"So I mentioned in the previous interview that in that area, so we don't, I can say it is not the BDF or any police department or forces in Belize that did. This was the training ground used by the British at the time, most likely it was either them or partner nation allies that came to train with them at the time but to say definitively where exactly or which country exactly did it, I would not be able to at this time but I can safely say that it was not Belizeans that did it."
"So we want to safely stabilize any ammunition, any old, what people might deem to be Relics that might have been left in the past we don't have an accurate number at this time at how many were unexploded or how many were left behind but the public has been very good and very forthcoming with whatever information available for us to then send our EOD team to safely stabilize whatever might be left behind."
