In Ksamil, along the Albanian Riviera, several drainage pipes have broken, causing the waste of the village to flow down the streets and into the pristinely blue sea near the area of the three islands. Several videos posted online show the rivers of excrement running through the village and onto the beach.
A few days ago, the citizens of Ksamil had already complained about the bad smell coming from the drains, which had been left open by the water supply and drainage company of Saranda (UKS). Sheme Luloi, the director of the UKS, not only dismissed the worries of the citizens, but even claimed that they themselves had been causing the stench by installing illegal drainage pipes.
Only recently, an EU-funded project to rehabilitate the water supply and drainage system in Ksamil had been finished. Although €265,000 of EU-IPA money had been spent on the project, but the UNS and the municipality still hadn’t completed the work by closing all the drains and flushing out the entire system. According to Minister of Transport and Infrastructure Sokol Dervishaj, the EU project was supposed to finish in November 2016, in order to be fully operational during the 2017 tourist season.
It is still unknown what caused the delays in the work or the breaking of the pipes. Neither the municipality, nor the government has yet responded to the massive ecological damage done to Ksamil at the height of the tourist season. Also the EU delegation, responsible for overseeing the implementation of EU-IPA projects, has remained silent.
