Zenica

In Bosnia, whose cities have long been listed among the most polluted in Europe, the statistics are public knowledge. It's estimated that in this country whose main source of energy are its own fossil fuels, mainly lignite, poor air quality causes the death of 3,300 people annually according to the World Bank.

Flowers were laid on Tuesday at the Kameni Spavac memorial in Zenica in central Bosnia to commemorate an attack on April 19, 1993 in which 15 civilians were killed and more than 50 others injured.

Anto Vrvilo had to watch every word he uttered while he was being interrogated in the presence of military policemen who held him in detention for two months in the basement of the Music School in the central Bosnian city of Zenica.

"Through the experience of my daily customers I have noticed that it helps with lung diseases and asthma," he told BIRN. "In situations like this, people are desperate to find a cure, so that's why they buy donkey milk."

"I have had positive numbers during the pandemic," he said.

Activists from the Centre for Non-Violent Action said they installed temporary commemorative plaques this month in the Zenica, Doboj and Zepce areas of Bosnia as part of an ongoing campaign to push local authorities to create permanent memorials to war victims.

Sabiha Husic, director of Medica Zenica. Photo: Zinaida Djelilovic.

"The third day I left the concentration camp, I confided to my wife what I had been through," he recalled. "She helped me the most. Unfortunately, she got diabetes from a lot of stress and she passed away few months ago."

"This community has no links to the institutions that might help her re-educate her children in the coming period. To do that here … will be very hard," he said.

Such complex work with returnees from Syria is a new experience for institutions in Bosnia and Herzegovina, although they have had two years to prepare work on "deradicalizing" Islamic State returnees.

Sakib Mahmuljin (left) receives the award from Zenica-Doboj Canton premier Mirza Ganic. Photo: Zenica-Doboj Canton government.

Bruce Berton, head of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe's mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina, said on Friday that the Zenica-Doboj Canton's decision to honour war crimes defendant Sakib Mahmuljin shows disrespect for the victims.

Danica Dakic, the first woman artist to represent Bosnia at the Venice Biennale, has taken the drastic social and economic changes in the old industrial town of Zenica as her inspiration.

Journalists gathered on Tuesday in Sarajevo, Mostar and Zenica to demand an end to violence against reporters in Bosnia and Heregovina, two days after Vladimir Kovacevic, a journalist at BN TV, one of the main media outlets in Bosnia's Serb-dominated entity, Republika Srpska, was attacked in front of his home in Banja Luka.