"Large amount" of unexploded ordnance in Serbia's big rivers

"Large amount" of unexploded ordnance in Serbia's big rivers

Unexploded missiles and bombs are located near the bridges Bogojevo-Erdut and Backa Palanka-Ilok, upstream from the bridge Sloboda in Novi Sad, downstream from the railway bridge in Novi Sad, near the port in Pancevo, between Ritopek and Ivanovo, near the bridge Smederevo-Kovin, close to the Prahovo port in Sabac and in two places in Obrenovac, close to the power station there and near the factory Baric, Jovanovic explained.

"A survey of the other locations along Serbia's waterways that are suspected of pollution with various types of unexploded ordnance is under way to establish the preliminary risk assessment," he noted.

There is suspicion that the Sava holds unexploded mines near the village of Jemen back from the 1991-1995 conflict, he remarked.

This is not just the unexploded ordnance left after the NATO bombing campaign, but also World War Two, he pointed out.

German war ships with mines and other ordnance were sunk in the Djerdap Gorge, near Prahovo, on Serbian territory in 1944, he stated.

"A survey was conducted in this location in 2006 and determined that 23 ships were sunk here, and that 4 of them contain anti-ship mines while others carried other unexploded ordnance," he said, adding that the sunken German fleet was making it harder to navigate that part of the Danube and posed a constant threat to the people and the environment.

There are around 150 location in Serbia with unexploded ordnance from World War Two, while around 6 million square meters are believed to have cluster bombs dropped by NATO in 1999, according to the Mine Action Center.

The center cleared seven bombs left from the NATO campaign between 2002 and December 2013.

According to Jovanovic, mine clearing is very expensive, with each square meter cleared costing between EUR 0.8 and EUR 1.2. The destruction of unexploded ordnance left in rivers is considerably more expensive because it involves additional work, and the price for removing one aerial bomb from the ground can be anywhere between tens and hundreds of thousands of euros.

Between 3,000 and 4,000 mines are destroyed in Serbia each year, and as many as 13,000 were destroyed in 2012, Tanjug reported.