Experts on Sunday removed a bomb left over from the 1999 NATO bombing of Serbia, forcing more than a thousand residents to evacuate, according to officials.
An interior ministry spokesman said that the 1,000-kilogram (2,200-pound) bomb was successfully removed from a construction site in the Nis neighborhood.
1,300 residents evacuated for their safety
“It is being transported to a safe location where it will be destroyed”, official Luka Causic told reporters.
Before the bomb was removed, 1,300 residents of the area where it was discovered were evacuated for their safety, he explained.
Police, firefighters, and medical teams were there to ensure safe transportation.
According to Causic, the MK-84 bomb contains 430 kilograms of explosives.
NATO’s bombardment of Serbia began on March 24, 1999
NATO’s bombardment of Serbia began on March 24, 1999, without UN Security Council approval, and lasted 78 days.
It aimed to end Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic’s violent crackdown on ethnic Albanian insurgents in Kosovo.
One of the bloodiest incidents during the campaign struck Nis 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 “blunder.”
The city was hit again with cluster bombs on May 12 of that year, killing 11 citizens.