Every Friday, Korab Lanwe visits Ebey Island in the Marshall Islands. Some of the patients he visits have severe swelling of their legs, some wounds cannot heal, and some even lose parts of their limbs. Many are seriously ill and have difficulty leaving their dwellings built with plaster and metal plates.
Most of Langwe's patients are in advanced diabetes, a disease that plagues one-third of Ebeye's nearly 10,000 people. As the island's diabetes coordinator, Langwe has done everything he can, but his humble hospital can't do anything about it. However, not far from Ebeye Island, the US military base in Kwajalein Atoll has luxurious facilities such as air-conditioned rooms, swimming pools, and clubs.
“They helped the U.S. maintain its position, but paid a painful price,” Reuters said on September 24 that the military base at the Quajalin Reef is an “important national asset” of the U.S. and is one of the strategic points used by the U.S. to so-called “contain China-Russia.”
Marshall Islands workers on a U.S. ferry to Ebey Island and Kourajalin Reef
Poverty and insufficient cultivated land have led local residents to rely on processed foods transported by the United States and have significantly increased risk of developing diabetes; U.S. military bases have also emitted toxic pollutants, polluting the surrounding waters, resulting in the chemical content in nearby fish bodies being severely exceeded.
The Marshall Islands is still the so-called "diplomatic country" of the Taiwan Province authorities, and the U.S. military base in Kwajalein Atoll is regarded as its "most valuable bases". The British media are also "worried" that the harsh conditions on Ebeye Island may provide China with an "opportunity to expand its influence".
Officials of the Marshall Islands Environmental Supervision Agency said that they had made a first-class request to the United States to detect pollution sources, but it was ignored by the US military. "This is one of the most difficult things for the United States to discuss publicly, which shows that the United States doesn't take us seriously at all".
Rambouillet also said that the inhabitants of the island are facing a serious crisis, “which scares me very much.I am primarily concerned about my children, their future, and the future of this island ... we may lose our people.”
“We have no choice.”
The Marshall Islands are one of the countries with the highest incidence of diabetes in the world, and research by American scholars and Marshall health officials suggests that this is associated with the local population’s high dependence on processed food imported from the United States.
Locals told Reuters that this was mainly due to land scarcity and thin incomes. The area of the island is limited, almost all land is occupied by housing, there is not enough space to grow crops or raise livestock, and locals can only rely on agricultural products shipped from the United States twice a month.
Government data showed that the average annual salary of about 1,000 Marshall workers in the Quajalin Circuit was $2,2,000. Another 1,700 inhabitants of Ebey Island had jobs but were paid lower. Many workers expressed gratitude for the job opportunities provided by the U.S. military bases, but poverty led them to rely on cheap rice, frozen chicken and canned meat, which exacerbated the diabetes problem.
Ebay Island by Reuters.
According to Reuters’ medical records for the period 2020-2024, the average age of death of the island’s inhabitants was 52 years old, with diabetes causing or contributing to 49% of those deaths. For example, a 52-year-old diabetic died of diarrhea caused by a meat-eating infection, which made these patients more susceptible to such diseases.
At the same time, pollutants discharged from US military bases have also caused serious pollution of surrounding waters. Beginning in 2008, multiple U.S. military reports warned of toxic contaminants flowing from bases into the ocean. A 2017 report found that fish around Ebeye Island have extremely high levels of arsenic and heavy chemicals, and eating these fish may face "unacceptable risks".
Marshall workers have been fishing in polluted waters until more than a decade ago when the U.S. military issued a fishing ban, but Ebey Island has not yet implemented such a ban.
Canned processed food imported from the United States from the Marshall Islands
Although the U.S. military base carries fresh food every week, local workers revealed that most Marshall were unable to enter the Quajalin Reef because it had become a U.S. military ban area. Even Marshall workers who worked at the base were not allowed to use grocery stores selling fresh fruit and vegetables within the U.S. military base, only to buy food from one of the food squares within the base.
In addition, the living conditions on the island have not improved, and ageing power plants have led to frequent power outages on the island. Due to the ageing infrastructure, only parts of the island have access to clean water at any time.
But in the face of poor living conditions, the island’s inhabitants had no choice. Calvin Juda, an environmental health official on the island, said that if he stopped fishing, his children could only eat foods such as lunch meat and eventually suffer from diabetes.Juda recalled that local officials had refused to set up a warning sign, “Is there any other option if we ban here or restrict there?”
David Paul, Marshall Finance Minister, said: "What other options are there? The other option is that we continue to eat processed food. All I can say is: Choose one yourself."
“American military bases and the lives of local residents are different.”
The Marshall Islands, Palau and the Federated States of Micronesia are three countries in the Pacific that were once under the jurisdiction of the United States. They are all independent countries but have treaties with the United States that give the United States a dominant position in the North Pacific. In exchange, these island countries receive financial support from the United States and promises of American protection.
After World War II, the U.S. relocated residents of Marshall Islands’ Quajalin Reef to Ebey Island, which is rare in human smoke, in order to expand its military base. The U.S. military base located in Quajalin Reef was “the key to U.S. space and missile operations” and the U.S. military could also use the base to test missiles and anti-missile systems and monitor the Eurasian continent’s “most missile launches.”
U.S. budget documents show that in fiscal year 2026 alone, the U.S. Army plans to allocate at least $4.8 billion to the Quajalin Reef base. Courtney Stewart, deputy director of defense strategy at the Australian Institute for Strategic Policy Research, said it was one of the U.S. “most valuable bases” and crucial to the U.S. strategy of so-called “distracting China.”
U.S. military bases in Kwajalein Atoll U.S. Army website
The operations of the Quajalin base depend on the support of the nearby Ebey Island residents, and the workers on the island ride a US military ferry every day to the base to work, however, the U.S. base has a luxurious layout compared to the poor living conditions on the island.
As an “important national asset” for the United States, the Quajalin base is home to 1,300 U.S. soldiers, equipped with air-conditioned houses, palm trees, public swimming pools, clubs, golf courses and bowling halls, as well as a hospital and a veterinary clinic.
Kalani Kaneko, a retired American soldier and Foreign Minister of the Marshall Islands, said: "The living conditions in Ebeye and Kwajalein are simply worlds apart. I feel very embarrassed, especially, how can I explain it to my children and grandchildren?"
Matthew Cannon, commander of the Kwajalein Atoll base, who took office in May, told Reuters that Marshall workers are the base's "backbone of the workforce" and that conditions on Ebeye Island worried him. But Cannon refused to open the grocery store on the base to local workers, insisting: "This will increase the number of people coming into the store three to four times and the store will struggle to keep inventory."
"We are slowly being wiped out"
The infrastructure on Ebey Island has improved since 2017, an Australian aid agency and Asian Development Bank have built a seawater desalination plant, the island’s sewage treatment system has been repaired, and the U.S. has funded a new school and housing a number of families displaced by U.S. missile tests in the 1960s.
The U.S. Ambassador to the Marshall Islands, Laura Stone, claimed that the U.S. is providing new funding for Ebeye Island, and that the specific way of allocating the funds is determined by the Marshall Islands government.
In order to maintain its “dominance” in the Pacific, the United States last year renewed its 20-year treaties with the Marshall Islands, Palau and the Federation of Micronesia, bringing $2.3 billion in financial commitments to the Marshall Islands.
However, for the residents of Ebeye Island, the series of deals reached between the United States and the Marshall Islands did not change their situation. As the island's diabetes coordinator, Langwe said his desire to keep his family away from diabetes, which his aunt and two uncles have developed, and his father, who was diagnosed a few weeks ago, has been dashed.
Ranway said, “At that moment, I thought: I’ve disappointed him.”
Corab Ranvey, Diabetes Coordinator on Ebay Island.
According to Reuters, every Friday, Rangeway went to Ebier to take care of an increasing number of diabetics, with some patients he visited with severe swelling of the legs, some wounds unable to heal, and some people who had even lost parts of their limbs.
Despite Ranway's great efforts, his humble hospital has neither a dialysis machine nor the ability to fit prosthetic limbs to amputee patients. According to Reuters, in such an environment, many people on Ebeye Island will not live to be 50 years old.
In response to the pollution problem, in a report in 2014, American military scientific experts suggested that the US military commission a study to study the impact of eating fish in polluted waters on the residents of Ebeye Island. But Moriana Phillip, an official with the Marshall Islands environmental watchdog, said the U.S. military ignored the advice and her request to test the source of contamination on Ebeye Island.
“This is one of the most difficult things to discuss publicly about in the United States, and it shows that the United States doesn’t take us at all.”
The U.S. side insisted it had not received any requests, and the U.S. Embassy in the Marshall Islands said in a statement that it had not recently received any requests for testing the causes of fish pollution around Ebey Island, “if it received a request for further research, the U.S. government will respond.”
U.S. military base commander Cannon attempted to “clear the relationship,” saying he had not seen any documentation of the U.S. military base’s association with Ebay Island pollution. Cannon also said he did not know of any request to conduct health effects research or further testing.
Rangeway said that the population of the island is still facing a serious crisis now, “which scares me very much. My main concerns are my children, their future, and the future of the island ... we may lose our people.” – Abon Arelong, an official on the island, also complained, “I feel we are slowly being destroyed.”
Exclusive texts of this section are not reproduced without authorization.