Protests were staged in one of the worst polluted municipalities in Europe, the central Bosnian settlement of Lukavac, near Tuzla. Protesters said the situation is unbearable and it if continues, they will be forced to block traffic.
Several hundred Lukavac residents asked the authorities from all levels of government to finally get the pollution measuring stations so they could monitor the values, and to make the internal measurements from the main regional polluters available to the public.
“We ask the inspectors, the prosecution and the competent court to take all measures against the polluters, and to see whether factory directors abused their position and authority as responsible persons,” Adem Mahovic from the Environmental Protection Forum of Lukavac Municipality said.
He also called on the High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, Valentin Inzko, who oversees the civilian implementation of the Dayton Peace Agreement, that ended the war in Bosnia, to allow the Lukavac residents to enjoy their basic human right to a clean environment.
Tuzla Technical Faculty professor, Abdel Djozic, said the problem in Lukavac will be present in years to come. According to his estimates, the pollution will only rise.
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The towns of Tuzla, Lukavac, and Zenica are in an alarming situation, he said, but no one is doing anything about it because the people working in the competent ministries are mixing the notions of ecology and environmental protection.
“The entire environmental protection system in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina entity is idle. When we talk about pollution, we're talking about cumulative pollution including the traffic and individual fireplaces, but the biggest polluters are the industrial producers,” he noted.
Djozic also noted that their pollution system is decades long and the statistical data on the number of diseased can tell how harmful it truly is.
