Dangerous Gerdec still attracting children’s attention

TIRANA, May 14 – Four years ago Gerdec killed 26 people and injured hundreds. It destroyed thousands of houses and small businesses there. It planted dangerous shells in a wide area surrounding it.
The situation has changed. Families have turned back, most of them, to their previous places but with new homes. There are new roads, streets, public buildings and more. Btu the area is still threatening due to the shells that may still be hidden somewhere.
But that is not threatening children in the area looking for them. That was made known from a private television station, Top Channel, showing how children in Gerdec looked for remaining shells in order to use their metal as a scrap sold for money.
Children were seen going quite close to the crater of the explosion in 2008. That means that children care less for their lives and more to fight their poverty.
Earlier this year the court sentenced 19 people to prison for a series of explosions at the Gerdec ammunition disposal factory leaving relatives of the victims angry saying the punishments were far too lenient and that top government officials have avoided justice.
Some 300 more people were injured and 5,500 nearby homes damaged or destroyed in the explosions on March 15, 2008, at the disposal factory in Gerdec, near Tirana, the capital. The blasts sent shrapnel and shell fragments raining down on homes and vehicles, and houses more than a mile away were damaged by the blast.
The private TV channel reporter went together with the children close to the crater where they found unexploded part of the shells which could be used as scrap.
The crater continues to be cleaned from an international company hired for that but they went to the place after 4 p.m. when its experts had left the area. It was shown how dozens of local residents entered the area in the afternoon to find pieces of metal to be sold.
The Defense Ministry immediately called, upon learning such a thing, on the people not to enter that dangerous area.
But the authorities should do more to find jobs and other commitment to the people living in the area so that their life can get better and they forget looking for money in the dangerous area of the explosion crater.