An 11-year-old boy found, and picked up, a wartime anti-personnel bomb at Wied Qirda near Qormi on Sunday before hiding it until AFM personnel detonated it this afternoon.

The small bomb, of a type which killed a farmer in Rabat in 1981, was discovered embedded in a rubble wall.

The boy, Andrew Worley, picked it up and showed it to his father, who immediately realised what it was. It was then hidden beneath the carcass of a rusting, long abandoned car until the AFM bomb squad was called to the scene this afternoon.

The soldiers decided that their safest option was to detonate the device on the spot - an operation which was concluded safely with a bang within a few minutes.

The bomb was of a type which used to be dropped in clusters from German aircraft in the Second World War. Such bombs were known as butterfly bombs because of their thin cylindrical outer shell which hinged open when the bomblet was deployed, giving it the appearance of a large butterfly.

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