Investigating: 1,700 potentially dangerous aerial bombs in BiH Armed Forces warehouses

The BiH Presidency recently adopted a Decision on the destruction of armaments, ammunition, and mine-explosive devices of the Armed Forces of Bosnia and Herzegovina, writes the news agency Patria.

On that occasion, the BiH Ministry of Defence was tasked, within the prescribed procedures, by implementing international agreements, contracts, and decisions accepted by the competent institutions of BiH, to destroy all quantities of aerial bombs that are unsafe for further storage, safekeeping, and maintenance, and to destroy all quantities of defective ammunition identified as such after control-technical inspections at the locations of Duži (Trebinje), Gabela (Čapljina), Krčmarice (Banja Luka), Krupa (Hadžići), Butila (Sarajevo), Bukova Greda (Orašje), Grabež (Bihać), Bačevići (Mostar), and Kula 2 (Mrkonjić Grad).

As confirmed for NAP from the BiH Ministry of Defence, there are currently about 1,700 aerial bombs of various types in the warehouses of the Armed Forces of BiH, which are of older production and from different manufacturers.

- The BiH Armed Forces have initiated the procedure for determining their qualitative condition, i.e., conducting a control-technical inspection (KTP), after which the qualitative condition of the aerial bombs could be reliably determined, and their further status decided - they told NAP from the BiH Ministry of Defence.

They further add that based on the currently valid regulations, for the aforementioned aerial bombs, due to the lack of expert personnel within the BiH Armed Forces for the planned activities, in cooperation with non-governmental organizations (UNDP,...), external experts will be engaged, and a team of experts will be formed to conduct the control-technical inspection (KTP) and determine the qualitative condition of the items in question and propose their further status.

- For aerial bombs found to be in a condition that could pose a potential danger, after the KTP performed by the expert team, the procedure for issuing a decision on destruction will be initiated - the Ministry of Defence added.

Incidentally, during 2014, 64 aerial bombs were destroyed at the Glamoč training ground, which had been classified as "dangerous-to-destroy" by KTP from an earlier period.

- The BiH Armed Forces will continue with this practice in order to strengthen the general safety of AF members and local communities, which will be one of the priorities of work in the future - they emphasized at the Ministry of Defence.