The United States must do more to remedy the nuclear legacy in the Marshall Islands, the UN human rights office said in a report presented to the Human Rights Council in Geneva on Thursday.

The US conducted 67 nuclear weapons tests in the Marshall Islands between 1946 and 1958, including Castle Bravo at Bikini Atoll in 1954. The report said the human cost has been severe and lasting, and there has not yet been a just settlement of the claims.

The report called on the US to provide healthcare and to declassify all information about the nuclear legacy. It cited elevated cancer rates, displacement from contaminated areas and lasting stigma, with exposed people called poison people. “The damage needs to be repaired,” said deputy high commissioner Awa Dabo.

The US State Department said it reached a full and final settlement of all claims in 1986 and continues to provide medical and environmental monitoring programmes.

Why it matters: seventy years on, communities displaced by the tests are still waiting for what the UN calls an effective remedy.