US military base cost US$800 million and is part of the Nato missile shield – but they didn’t count on this herd of hungry Romanian sheep
The complaint has spiralled into a more than three-year legal saga between the Romanian defence ministry and the farmer that has now reached the country’s highest court
One of the most important strategic sites in Europe for the US military has come under threat from a rather unexpected enemy: a flock of sheep.
It is their random meanderings near the Deveselu base in southern Romania that has triggered an unusual power struggle between US commanders and a stubborn local sheep farmer.
Dumitru Bleja’s 250 or so sheep “grazed without problem” in the area for years before the Americans arrived at the end of 2013, said Alexandru Damian, mayor of Stoenesti, a community on the vast Danubian plain 40km north of the border with Bulgaria.
“Sheep are not like people. They don’t respect the rules, they go into areas where security sensors are active, touching the fence and setting off alarm systems,” he said.
But this is unthinkable for the US military, which chose the site as one of its two anti-missile defence systems to help defend Nato members against the threat of short and medium-range ballistic missiles, particularly from the Middle East.
