Durban - When a private security company responded to call of a suspicious person in a Durban North suburb, they did not expect to find a live mortar bomb in the man’s trolley.
A homeless man was pushing a trolley full of scrap metal down Collard Road, in Rosehill, when he was stopped and searched by reaction officers from UTI Electronics security firm.
The rusted, but live, mortar bomb, possibly from World War II, was found in the trolley.
The man told the reaction officers he had found the bomb in the Virginia area.
Desmond Daniels, of UTI Electronics, said a resident in Collard Road had called their control room to report a suspicious person.
“A few nights ago the resident’s home was broken into. He suspected the homeless man was behind the burglary.
“We responded to the call and found the man at the bottom end of Collard Road. We searched his trolley and spotted the bomb. My instinct told me that the bomb was live.
“I carefully removed it from the trolley and left it on a vacant piece of land, just in case it went off.”
Daniels said a few minutes later a police van drove past.
“We flagged the van and explained what we had found. The policeman confirmed it was a bomb. He told us to take the suspect and the bomb to the Greenwood Park police station.”
The policeman then drove off, Daniels said.
“During that time the suspect also disappeared. I called the police emergency line for help. The bomb disposal unit arrived a short while later and took the bomb away.”
The bomb would be destroyed at a designated area in the Bluff.
He said police described the bomb as very old, possibly from World War II.
Daily News