Coal introduced prosperity — and illness — to Bosnia. A phrase uttered by a employee within the Nineteen Nineties got here to outline the struggles of a area coping with the air pollution brought on by certainly one of its major industries.
Textual content and images by MATTEO TREVISANin Zenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina
“Right here in Zenica we’re all sick, just some don’t know they’re sick but.”
These have been the phrases of an activist I met on my first journey to Bosnia in 2019. Two years later, he died of lung most cancers. That was when — and largely why — this undertaking began.
Zenica, a metropolis of roughly 100,000 individuals some 70 kilometers north of Sarajevo, is among the most polluted cities in Bosnia. The principle supply of air pollution, in accordance with Eko Discussion board, an area environmental group, is a large metal plant owned by AcelorMittal. The plant, which is sort of as massive as town itself, produces vitality by burning coal.
The scenario has residents within the metropolis and surrounding areas fearful about their well being and their future.
Alma, who lives in Tetovo, a village not removed from the commercial middle of Zenica, stated she moved to the world after she married, greater than 4 many years in the past. “At the moment, many individuals labored within the manufacturing facility, however at this time the scenario is horrible. Inside a 300-metre radius of my home, everybody has most cancers.” She was recognized with abdomen most cancers herself in 2021.
This isn’t only a story of Zenica, and even Bosnia, however extra broadly of the Central Balkans, the place numerous cities and cities face closely polluted air brought on by outdated coal industries and energy crops, open-cast lignite mines and ash dumps.
In line with a Human Rights Watch report, Bosnia has the fifth highest variety of deaths from air air pollution on the earth. Concentrations of pollution within the area — which is residence to seven of the ten most polluting coal-fired energy stations in Europe — are 5 instances increased than the boundaries set by the EU, the U.N. Surroundings Program has discovered.
Within the years I explored the commercial cities of Zenica, Tuzla, Banovici and different locations saddled with air pollution, I found a outstanding nation, scarred by warfare however resolutely hopeful that turning into a member of the EU will enhance a poisonous environmental panorama and usher in a brighter future.