A century-old artillery shell weighing nearly 300 kilograms (660 pounds) was safely removed from a construction site near the Serbian parliament in Belgrade on Sunday, police said.
The 305mm “Morser M.11” howitzer shell, found last Wednesday, was used by the Austro-Hungarian army during the siege of the capital in July 1914 during World War I, Interior Minister Ivica Dacic said ahead of the removal operation.
Police had ordered residents to remove their vehicles from the area and asked them to be careful, advising them to leave their homes if possible.
The grenade was taken to a sandy area about 60 kilometers from Belgrade and destroyed there.
Several bombs from previous wars have been found in Serbia, but they were removed without causing an explosion.
A large bomb from the 1999 NATO bombing was discovered in Nis, in southern Serbia, in April, while a 242-kilogram (550-pound) bomb from World War II was removed from a construction site on the outskirts of Belgrade in 2021.
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