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Sea view from Sazan Island. Photo: BIRN.
Balkan Insight
By Vladimir Karaj
Albania has greenlighted construction of a luxury island resort by a company linked to Donald Trump’s son-in-law – but under the azure waters lie tonnes of unexploded WWII ordnance.
On the western shore of Albania’s Sazan Island, where waves crash against steep cliffs, lies an area that seafarers call “Gryka e Xhehenemit” – the Gorge of Hell.
On the surface, the transparent waters offer a fairytale view – precisely the kind of natural beauty believed capable of attracting the elite of global tourism. But dive just metres below the surface and the tourist postcard turns into a wartime scene, frozen in time.
Across a marine area of 5,000 square metres, 200-millimetre artillery shells from World War II rest silently alongside anti-submarine mines and tons of explosives, undetonated.
Official documents from the Albanian Armed Forces and testimony from people familiar with the Adriatic Sea island say similar areas exist on almost every side of the island.
But the unexploded ordnance has not halted plans by the government and foreign investors to build a resort and tourist port on Sazan.
At the end of 2024, Prime Minister Edi Rama’s government granted “strategic investor” status to Atlantic Incubation Partners LLC, a company linked to Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of US President Donald Trump.
The promised investment, in which the Albanian state is a partner by making the property and other incentives available, is valued at 1.4 billion euros. As well as Kushner, who first made the idea public, billionaires from Qatar are now also reported to be involved.
The plans, which so far exist only on paper, changed again at the end of last year. The Strategic Investments Committee then extended the deadline for the project, which envisages transforming 45 hectares of the island into a network of luxury villas and resorts, and increased the benefits granted to the investor.
To facilitate the investment, the government granted new legislative concessions. In addition to previous controversial amendments to the Protected Areas Law, which contradicted recommendations by the European Union, exclusive amendments were approved to the law on tourist ports in order to permit contracts without competition for strategic investors.
The Strategic Investments Committee has now tasked the Ministry of Defence with clearing the island and the surrounding sea of unexploded munitions.
But while the government has rolled out the legislative red carpet on the surface, the underwater reality remains stubbornly unchanged.
Data from the General Staff of the Armed Forces, provided in response to a Freedom of Information request by BIRN, together with testimony from naval experts, fishermen and biologists reveal that Sazan and its surrounding waters constitute what looks like a minefield.
Eliminating this legacy would require major costs, specialised divers and a large-scale clearance operation.
Artur Mecollari, a former naval official and a maritime expert, says that the presence of munitions renders the island dangerous for civilians and tourists, which, he argues, calls the tourism development plan into question.
“The problem is this: once construction is completed, will tourists be safe?” Mecollari asks.
“If you clear only the area where construction will take place, the remainder becomes a problem for the future,” he adds.
By Vladimir Karaj
Albania has greenlighted construction of a luxury island resort by a company linked to Donald Trump’s son-in-law – but under the azure waters lie tonnes of unexploded WWII ordnance.
On the western shore of Albania’s Sazan Island, where waves crash against steep cliffs, lies an area that seafarers call “Gryka e Xhehenemit” – the Gorge of Hell.
On the surface, the transparent waters offer a fairytale view – precisely the kind of natural beauty believed capable of attracting the elite of global tourism. But dive just metres below the surface and the tourist postcard turns into a wartime scene, frozen in time.
Across a marine area of 5,000 square metres, 200-millimetre artillery shells from World War II rest silently alongside anti-submarine mines and tons of explosives, undetonated.
Official documents from the Albanian Armed Forces and testimony from people familiar with the Adriatic Sea island say similar areas exist on almost every side of the island.
But the unexploded ordnance has not halted plans by the government and foreign investors to build a resort and tourist port on Sazan.
At the end of 2024, Prime Minister Edi Rama’s government granted “strategic investor” status to Atlantic Incubation Partners LLC, a company linked to Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of US President Donald Trump.
The promised investment, in which the Albanian state is a partner by making the property and other incentives available, is valued at 1.4 billion euros. As well as Kushner, who first made the idea public, billionaires from Qatar are now also reported to be involved.
The plans, which so far exist only on paper, changed again at the end of last year. The Strategic Investments Committee then extended the deadline for the project, which envisages transforming 45 hectares of the island into a network of luxury villas and resorts, and increased the benefits granted to the investor.
To facilitate the investment, the government granted new legislative concessions. In addition to previous controversial amendments to the Protected Areas Law, which contradicted recommendations by the European Union, exclusive amendments were approved to the law on tourist ports in order to permit contracts without competition for strategic investors.
The Strategic Investments Committee has now tasked the Ministry of Defence with clearing the island and the surrounding sea of unexploded munitions.
But while the government has rolled out the legislative red carpet on the surface, the underwater reality remains stubbornly unchanged.
Data from the General Staff of the Armed Forces, provided in response to a Freedom of Information request by BIRN, together with testimony from naval experts, fishermen and biologists reveal that Sazan and its surrounding waters constitute what looks like a minefield.
Eliminating this legacy would require major costs, specialised divers and a large-scale clearance operation.
Artur Mecollari, a former naval official and a maritime expert, says that the presence of munitions renders the island dangerous for civilians and tourists, which, he argues, calls the tourism development plan into question.
“The problem is this: once construction is completed, will tourists be safe?” Mecollari asks.
“If you clear only the area where construction will take place, the remainder becomes a problem for the future,” he adds.
Unexploded ordnance on rocks at Sazan Island. Photo: BIRN.
High-risk maritime zones
Sazan Island served as a naval base under Albania’s communist regime and remains under the control of the Ministry of Defence. To pave the way to granting it strategic investor status, Albania’s President Bajram Begaj earlier signed an urgent decree removing a military training zone from the Armed Forces deployment plan.
Nevertheless, the island’s century-long legacy as a military zone has left its marks.
“On Sazan Island and in the waters surrounding it, despite the work carried out to identify and clear unexploded ordnance … there remains the possibility and risk of the presence of unexploded munitions on land territory, along the coastline, as well as in the surrounding maritime waters,” the General Staff of the Armed Forces wrote in a response to BIRN.
The General Staff said it had identified four zones with a massive presence of unexploded ordnance in the waters surrounding the island.
It said although several military clearance operations were conducted between 2013 and 2015 in three of these zones, the quantity of explosives remains alarming.
In Zone 3 alone, the north-east of the island and considered the most contaminated area, around 30 tonnes of munitions of various calibres were recovered and destroyed.
“In this zone, munitions of various calibres, as well as gunpowder, have been identified, dispersed across an area of approximately 7,000 sq m, both with and without fuses. In this zone, around 30 tonnes of munitions of various calibres have been recovered and destroyed,” the General Staff stated.
In Zones 1 and 2, where several thousand square metres were also identified as contaminated, the General Staff did not mention the quantities of munitions recovered from the sea but noted that unexploded ordnance may still be present there.
“Despite the operations carried out to clear Zones 1, 2 and 3, there remains the possibility that sea currents may have uncovered and displaced other unexploded munitions, which during the period of the operations may have been covered by sand and seabed sediments,” it stated. It warned that even in the areas where interventions have taken place, there may be unexploded ordnance.
According to the General Staff, the principal concern stems from the fourth zone, or “Gryka e Xhehenemit” – the Gorge of Hell.
Data from the Ministry of Defence shows that in this area, west of Sazan, unexploded ordnance is present across an area of 5,000 square metres at depths ranging from five to 30 metres.
“No clearance operations have been carried out in this zone,” the General Staff said.
This situation was confirmed on the ground by fishermen and other visitors to the area.
A 60-year-old diver, who asked to remain anonymous, said the depths around Sazan remain an open depot of weaponry and the army’s partial operations often fail to counter the forces of nature.
“The sea is difficult to clear,” he said. “An operation was carried out, but the sea brings up new ones – it is not easy to clean.”
He added that in the so-called Gorge of Hell, where he used to dive for octopus, he personally saw more than 50 Italian 200-millimetre calibre artillery shells.
The fisherman said he knows these weapons well, having served in the navy between 1985 and 1987 aboard minesweeper vessels tasked with clearing naval mines.
“Near the beach, in the area known as the Sazan Beach, there are anti-submarine mines. There are also large artillery shells,” he said, recalling his years of naval service.
“We didn’t dive for the munitions, so I cannot tell you how many there are, but there are many,” he claimed.
He insisted that they remain hazardous.
“The anti-submarine mines, especially, theoretically have their detonation mechanisms out of function, but the explosive material remains there. If you do not disturb them, there is no danger. But if they are touched or moved, the consequences could be fatal,” he said.
Clearing ordnance won’t be cheap
Plans for Sazan Island and its transformation into a “tourist paradise” are not new.
The abandoned former military base has repeatedly become the object of multibillion-euro dreams in Albania, including proposals to establish a casino there or develop other forms of commercial exploitation.
In their responses to BIRN, neither the General Staff nor the Ministry of Defence answered how much the land and maritime clearance operation on Sazan would cost.
“During 2025, the Armed Forces carried out reconnaissance operations to assess the terrain and calculate the assets required, as well as the methods of intervention necessary for conducting clearance operations of unexploded ordnance on the island’s territory,” the General Staff stated, employing the cautious language of bureaucracy.
Artur Mecollari said the impasse is not merely technical but also financial and logistical.
“The problem is not that it cannot be done but that it requires a huge amount of money and it is unclear where the munitions would be dismantled,” he said.
“That is the major issue, because in order to clear the area, the munitions have to be transported to a military range – they have to be placed somewhere else,” he added.
He recalled previous naval operations, particularly around 1999 to 2002, when 37 tonnes of munitions were removed from clearly identified areas.
“The fleet paid for it and carried out the operation,” he recalled. “It took one month, with 60 people engaged solely for this purpose, including four or five divers working at depths of up to 10 metres,” he explained.
Mecollari says underwater explosive ordnance disposal operations are extraordinarily complex, while Albania’s Armed Forces are short of the specialised personnel needed to carry them out.
“It requires an enormous commitment of time and specialised divers,” he says, adding that the post-clearance inspection phase is the most complex stage of the operation.
According to Mecollari, the munitions around Sazan do not pose a threat to port operations or to large-scale maritime navigation, but the equation changes once the area is turned into a tourist village.
Hazards not only underwater
The danger posed by unexploded ordnance on Sazan was confirmed by Simo Ribaj, a biologist who frequently undertakes diving expeditions in the area to study marine flora and fauna. Ribaj says visitors are often frightened by the piles of explosives.
He warns that the danger is not confined to the seabed.
“On the island itself, the situation used to be very bad 10 to 15 years ago. It was cleaned up, but the presence [of munitions] remains because they become covered and uncovered again, and they are potentially dangerous,” he says.
According to Ribaj, the island requires inspection using specialised equipment, since many of the munitions may have been buried over time but could be exposed again through erosion or new construction.
The presence of munitions calls into question plans for elite beach tourism. Ribaj says he has seen artillery shells along almost the entire perimeter of the island, including near the port, stressing that clearing such a difficult underwater terrain “requires major work in order to approach it properly”.
The presence of these dangerous military remnants, if not cleared, poses a genuine risk to the island’s use by the hospitality industry, he believes. “They are absolutely dangerous, and entirely incompatible with tourism,” he says.
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