Century-old grenades discovered hidden in French onion supply within the Netherlands

Metro Loud
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A French onion supply made eyes water greater than standard when Dutch authorities found two hand grenades hidden among the many greens, the Group for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons mentioned Wednesday.

The grenades, courting from 1925, have been present in a consignment of onions heading from France to a manufacturing facility within the northern Dutch province of Zeeland.

Dutch authorities requested the OPCW to look at the discover.

“The projectiles have been recognized to be according to pre-1925 French and German manufactured previous chemical weapons,” the Hague-based group concluded after investigating the case.

“Nevertheless, the kind of chemical fill couldn’t be recognized,” it added in an announcement.

The explanation for the weapons’ presence within the supply stays a thriller.

The grenades can be destroyed, however because the Netherlands lacks a devoted destruction facility for the sort of object, they are going to be “transferred as poisonous waste to the specialised chemical dismantling facility in Poelkapelle, Belgium,” the OPCW mentioned.

This {photograph} taken on Might 19, 2025 exhibits an previous First World Battle shell in a X-Ray system to find out if it nonetheless accommodates poisonous chemical substances, on the DOVO demining workforce base camp in Poelkapelle, Belgium. 

NICOLAS TUCAT/AFP through Getty Photographs


The Netherlands thanked the Belgian authorities for his or her assist.

The unusual discovery got here simply days after a stay grenade was discovered by a toddler within the entrance yard of his household’s residence Washington state.  Authorities mentioned a 3-year-old boy found a World Battle II-era hand grenade, and a bomb squad eliminated and disposed of the explosive. Nobody was injured, based on the sheriff’s workplace. 

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