AFP: In Albania, divers search for World War II bombs

Beneath the crystal clear water of the Adriatic there, shells and grenades dating back to World War II rust on the seabed, AFP says, polluting the environment while posing a deadly threat.

Aboard the diving support vessel Pluto, a group of about 10 French and Albanian divers are on a joint mission to find and remove the munitions, but no one knows how many are still left.

In less than two hours, they managed to collect an impressive 85 pieces of munitions, which were likely deliberately dumped into the sea by the Italian occupation troops more than seven decades ago.

“These are Italian munitions from the Second World War, which instead of sending them back to Italy, they abandoned them here and threw them into the sea.” said Ilirian Kristo, deputy commander of the divers unit.

Specialists found a total of 310 such devices during joint Franco-Albanian operations last year. Most of them were artillery shells, lodged between rocks on the seabed.

“It is a joint work with the Albanian navy, which knows the country better than we do. The exact identification of the mortars and shells that we extract is complicated by the fact that their condition has deteriorated considerably. This can only happen if they spend a certain amount of time on land, underwater is quite difficult.” said Aymeric Barazer de Lannurien, the captain of “Pluto”.

“During today’s operation we found 85 shells of different sizes, from 155 mm to the smallest ones. They will be transported to Tirana to be disposed of in an unexploded ordnance disposal site.”said Illyrian Christo.

The teams engaged for this purpose face not only the danger of exploding ammunition, but also rough seas and scorching heat.

However, as Ilirian Kristo says, diving for finding and destroying bombs is not only a profession, but also a great passion.

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