01.11.2024.
Preventive engagement of the Serbian Armed Forces in flood risk management
As part of a civil-military cooperation project, members of the Serbian Armed Forces, in cooperation with local government authorities, built a rampart on the Raška River this week for the purpose of flood control.
A hundred-meter-long retaining wall was erected in the Milatkovići Local Community by members of the 210th Engineering Battalion of the Second Army Brigade in an effort to prevent flooding of the surrounding areas in the event of a river overflow and thus protect property and human lives.According to Lieutenant(N) Ivan Obreza of the Second Brigade Command, the Raška River has overflowed its banks on several occasions in recent years and caused the greatest material damage exactly on this section.
— We used to help the locals of this area by having the army come and build embankments out of sacks, and now, after the construction of this permanent rampart, we hope that there will be no need for that any more — lieutenant (N) Obreza said.
Commander of the engineering working group that was tasked with building a rampart on the left bank of the Raška River, Second Lieutenant Tina Stamenković, points out that from Monday until today, members of the Serbian Armed Forces have been working on the construction of a defensive earth wall together with workers from the “Putevi Raška” Public Utility Company, which has been well received by the locals.President of the Municipality of Raška, Darko Milićević, says that this decade-old problem of the Milatkovići Local Community is being resolved based on an agreement on civil-military cooperation with the Serbian Armed Forces.
— We are building a rampart to protect this entire area, we have a lot of agricultural land in these parts, and we also have residential buildings, a lot of houses, so our common goal is to rehabilitate and simply secure this entire part from flooding. We have had fantastic cooperation with the army for decades in every sense, we are grateful to the Serbian Armed Forces for always coming to our aid whenever we had emergency situations, they have always been there to help us with their engagement both with their equipment and personnel. We will make plans for the coming years as well, we have more locations that we can jointly organise and help our people — President of the Raška Municipality Milićević said.