Achi news desk-
SH, Serbia: Experts on Sunday removed a bomb left in a southern Serbian town from the 1999 NATO bombing of the country, prompting the evacuation of more than a thousand residents, officials said.
The 1,000-kilogram (2,200-pound) bomb was successfully removed from a construction site in the Nice neighborhood, an Interior Ministry official said.
“It is being moved to a safe place where it will be destroyed,” official Luka Kausic told reporters.
Before the cargo was removed, 1,300 residents of the area where it was found were evacuated for their safety, he added.
Police, firefighters and medical personnel were present to ensure his safe transport.
The MK-84 bomb has a 430 kg explosive charge, Kausic said.
The NATO bombing of Serbia began on March 24, 1999, without the approval of the UN Security Council, and lasted 78 days.
The goal was to end Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic’s bloody crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists in Kosovo.
One of the bloodiest incidents during the campaign occurred in Nice on May 7, 1999. More than a dozen people were killed when NATO planes dropped cluster bombs on a crowded central outdoor market. The incident was later described as a “mistake.”
The city was bombed again on May 12 of the same year with cluster bombs, which led to the death of 11 civilians.
