River Bed and River Bank UXO Clearance Project Planned

Belgrade, Serbia The European Commission and the Serbian Government are developing a plan and jointly funding an effort to clear UXO from the Sava and Danube rivers. The underwater UXO river clearance project is designed to address the UXO in the river beds and along the river banks to make the area safer for maritime transit. The source of the UXO was from bombing that occurred in 1999 when a 78-day bombing campaign was conducted by NATO forces to remove Serb troops from the then province of Kosovo. Due to history of the area, the potential exists for WWI and WWII era UXO to be in the area as well.

The project is slated to cost $3.8M EUR ($5.35M USD). Under the terms of the project, it was reported that the European Commission will allocate $1.8M EUR to the project with the remainder ($2M EUR) coming from the Serbian Government.