Germany helps Albania get rid of munitions

TIRANA, July 22 – Germany on Tuesday gave 100,000 euros to the UNDP which is helping Albania clean areas contaminated with munitions and explosives.
The agreement was signed by German ambassador in Albania Hellmut Hoffmann and the UNDP representative Zineb Touimi-Benjelloun.
UNDP handles the project to monitor the mines in Albania, and the money will be used to clean these contaminated areas and to turn them in areas that do not pose a risk.
Hundreds of thousands of light weaponry and hundreds of tons of rounds of ammunition and explosives were looted from the army depots in 1997 when the country fell into an almost anarchy after the collapse of the failed pyramid investment schemes where Albanians, the poorest population in the continent, had invested their life savings.
Despite many international projects led from the UNDP and also efforts of the Albanian authorities in collecting and strengthening the legal context of illegal weapon possession, it is still believed that much of that amount remains in the hands of the common people in the country.