TIRANA, Oct. 23 – Albania is on track to clear its four remaining ammunition hotspots by the end of next year, Defense Minister Olta Xhaà§ka has announced.
The statement came last weekend as the defense minister visited the Selica ammunition hotspot in Mat district, some 90 km north of Tirana, where a tragic explosion in the 1997 turmoil and looting of army depots triggered by the collapse of some pyramid investment schemes, claimed 23 victims among local village residents.
“The armed forces are doing a job of great dangerousness and I congratulate them for the extraordinary dedication to citizens,” said Xhaà§ka, a ruling Socialist Party MP who last September succeeded Mimi Kodheli, Albania’s first ever female defense minister.
“Out of 19 hotspots identified in 2011, there are only four remaining and we are currently also working with support by the American government. Our goal is to clear all these four remaining hotspots by the end of 2018 in compliance with all security standards and put them back to civilian use,” added the minister.
More than 390,000 pieces of ammunition and bullets have been identified in the past three months at Selica hotspot and a 130m2 area of one of the tunnels cleared, says the defense ministry.
Last July, the Albanian Mines and Munitions Coordination Office, AMMCO, cleared two hotspots in Gjirokastra, southern Albania, which 20 years ago during the notorious 1997 turmoil claimed the lives of four military officers.
During the civil unrest in 1997, approximately 652,000 weapons of different calibres, 1.5 billion rounds of ammunition, 3.5 million hand grenades, 3,600 tonnes of explosive devices and one million mines were looted from military depots. Unofficial estimates are even higher.
Fifteen ammunition hotspots have already been cleared during the past six years, and in addition to Selice, there are three additional hotspots in Tepelena and Durres.
The defence ministry says the hotspots have claimed 151 lives and left another 851 wounded since the notorious 1997 looting of army depots.
The Norwegian People’s Aid which assisted the Albanian government with the clearance process said the hotspots not only endanger lives of the local population, but also hinder development of the areas.
Albania declared that it had cleared all known mined areas and all known unexploded ordinance in by 2009 when it joined NATO. However, Albania continues to face a threat from abandoned explosive ordnance around former army ammunition storage sites.
“There were unplanned explosions at ammunition storage areas during the 1997 civil unrest where 38 army explosive store houses were destroyed due to the detonation of thousands of tonnes of ammunition. It is estimated that more than 590 people were injured and more than 100 killed in the aftermath of the unplanned explosions, or due to scrap metal collection at these sites,” says the Norwegian People’s Aid humanitarian organization.
