Intro
It has been over a month since one of the severest natural catastrophes to hit Bosnia and Herzegovina. On October 4th, 2024, massive floods enveloped five major towns in Herzegovina: Fojnica, Jablanica, Kiseljak, Konjic, and Kreševo. The floods have claimed the lives of 29 people so far, with others still being looked for under the rubble.
According to the Agency for Water of the Adriatic Region, this was the largest downfall ever recorded in this particular area, with over 392 liters per square meter. This heavy downfall, in conjunction with illegal deforestation and construction waste dumping and illegal quarry mining, only added to the erosion of the terrain in the region and caused floods similar to those of 2014.
The town of Jablanica, which lies halfway between Sarajevo and Mostar, has received the worst of the floods. A previously declared defunct stone quarry, which according to the Ministry of Economy of the Herzegovina-Neretva Canton has been operating illegally and without a concession, had been deforesting the valley leading to Jablanica and dumping their waste there. This created a dam that accumulated water over months, causing a landslide due to the heavy rainfall during October 2nd and 3rd, burying the town under it.
The Jablanica quarry, now aptly named Smrtnik (which roughly translates into “Deathbringer”) has been operating under a concession licence that, according to the Ministry of Economy of the Herzegovina-Neretva Canton, does not exist. The company operating the quarry Sani doo has been requesting a concession licence since 2009, but this Ministry claims the concession has been repeatedly denied.
The decision to deny the concession application is based on the findings of the cantonal Inspectorate for Safety, deeming the quarry site a hazard for the surrounding area. According to the Government of the Herzegovina-Neretva Canton, the last inspection of the site was conducted in August 2021 and stated:
No workers or machinery were visible on site. The quarry is overgrown with low and mid-sized plants and shows no signs of any activity. [1]
However, satellite images taken between 2018 and today, as reported by istraga.ba, show that the extraction at this site has been going on for years. This is also backed by testimonies of the townspeople, whose concerns were ignored[2].
The owner of the company Sani doo, Dženan Honđo, has known ties to infamous criminals in Bosnia and Herzegovina. According to testimonies of townspeople, investigative journalists were taken to the quarry to speak with management, but the townspeople left them at the gate, saying they were too scared to go in, due to threats by the owners.
This raises the question of whether it was wilful ignorance by the authorities that allowed this to happen. This may appear as a tragic mistake. But, if we look closer into the ties of the criminal underworld of Bosnia and Herzegovina, where private interest and the hunt for profits and accumulation of wealth exceed the interests and safety of citizens, this is probably best reflected in the 2014 amendment to the Law of Forests and Greenery of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which lowered the deforestation period from the initial 25 years (a remnant of the Law from Yugoslavia), to 5 years[3].
Response and Rescue
This is not the first natural catastrophe witnessed in Bosnia and Herzegovina; in 2014, floods hit the Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia[4] on a larger scale than this year. On both occasions, we witnessed tremendous solidarity and volunteer efforts to help coming from all cities in Bosnia and Herzegovina and its neighbouring countries, as well as the local governments’ complete and utter negligence in issuing warnings to the people in the affected cities in the election year.
Nermin Nikšić,[5] the former and current Prime Minister of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, promised after the 2014 floods that such a catastrophe would be prevented and that we would be better prepared. However, the warning for the October 2024 floods was issued only on the infamous website of the Hydro-Metrological Society of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.[6]
After the damage was already done and people had lost lives and their homes on October 4th, it took the Federal Government 12 hours to coordinate with the Service for Public Safety and the Presidency to mobilize the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina to help. By then, many people from other cities were already en route to help before the Government decided to act.
October 6th, 2024, was local election day in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Instead of postponing the election in the entire country by a week, the Central Election Committee cynically deemed that it would cost 20 million BAM (approximately 10 million Euros) to do so. The results of the elections remained approximately the same as 4 years ago, whereas it was impossible to organize elections in Fojnica, Konjic, Jablanica, Kiseljak, and Kreševo[7].
Since 2014, the Natural Disaster Fund of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina has accumulated 556 million BAM. The way it works is that approximately 1.5 EUR is paid for through monthly gross taxes on salaries and other income from citizens. If the funds are not spent in the ongoing year, they are reallocated to other government projects. As the decision process is obviously flawed, these funds are now in some sort of limbo. Meanwhile, various humanitarian organizations such as the Red Cross, Red Crescent, and pomozi.ba have done a tremendous job in raising money and aid for the affected towns. The campaign of pomozi.ba has raised approximately 80,000 Euros in a matter of hours and has made sure that aid has reached those in need.
This raises the question of where the governmental funds for natural disasters are going. The ruling elite will likely claim the funds were used for developmental projects and stimulus packages for the modernization of current enterprises. For example, Sani doo, the company responsible for the landslide in Jablanica in 2021, after the aforementioned safety inspection, received 14,000 BAM (approx. 7.000 Euros) from the Ministry of Economy of the Herzegovina-Neretva Canton to modernize their machinery, while the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina were left to subsidize the aid the Government was supposed to provide.
The material damages in Jablanica alone are estimated to be around 50 million Euros, whereas the Federal Government will allocate around 500,000 BAM to the Red Cross for aid efforts[8]. Meanwhile, no efforts by the government have been made to remedy the situation for the locals of Jablanica.
The floods also had an effect on public infrastructure. Many homes in Jablanica are currently without heating, and the elementary school in Jablanica “Suljo Čilić”, which has around 500 students, does not have heating for the upcoming winter months. The Federal Minister for Education Jasna Duraković visited the school on October 22nd and stated that this must be remedied as soon as possible and that funds from other government projects will be redirected towards this particular case, pending a budget rebalancing.[9]
The floods also impacted the country’s infrastructure, such as the railway going from Sarajevo to the Ploče harbor, cutting off a vital supply line of goods for Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The official position now is that Bosnia and Herzegovina’s economy will suffer, and various experts in neoliberal policy are already crying that loans need to be taken to save enterprises, which is indicative of current official policies, where enterprises and profits are being put before the needs of citizens.[10]
After all of this, the question is who or what is to blame, what are some of the steps we can take to prevent this in the future?
Jablanica is not the only example of such predatory extractivism. Similar cases can be found in other parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina, such as the deforestation in my hometown Tešanj, a town that prouds itself to be a leader in sustainable and eco-friendly development, with large reserves of natural drinking water, where several private construction companies, hired to work on the construction of a section of the Corridor 5C highway, were allowed to cut 20 hectares of pristine forest and turn it into a landfill for construction waste[11]; or the shameless police violence against the women of Kruščica in 2019, who were protesting against the construction of a mini hydro plant that would devastate the national park[12]; or the commencement of the construction of a mini hydro plant on the spring of the Una river on the Croatian-Bosnian border this year[13]; the looming lithium exploitation in the municipality of Lopare[14] – the list can go on. These are just a few examples of the ongoing ecological devastation in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which has been ongoing ever since the war ended in 1995. Most of these examples can be deemed as legal, as someone from the local government signed off on them. However, when it comes to deforestation, the situation is murkier, with entire tracts of forests disappearing to private companies like Borja in Teslić, which has been deforesting the territory for over five years and is still under investigation. To contextualize – the territory of the Municipality of Teslić, a city in the central part of northern Bosnia, spans over 870 square kilometres, a third of which are forests.[15] This particular example of extraction has been going on for five years and no efforts by the authorities have been made to stop it.
I will not pretend to have a smart answer, but would rather leave this on a note of hope. Despite this disasterous event that claimed the lives of 29 people and left many more displaced, dispossessed, and desperate, we have seen that people have not lost their sense of solidarity and were the first to rush to help while the government and their cronies were twirling their fingers and hoping for good election results. It will be up to us to fight back against the destruction of life for the sake of profit, because if we do not, nature will fight back against all of us.
[1] Sani doo did not have a concession licence: https://federalna.ba/vlada-hnk-sani-doo-jablanica-nije-dobio-dozvolu-za-eksploatisanje-kamena-u-donjoj-jablanici-9c1ae (last accessed: 17/10/2024)
[2] Satellite images of the Deathbringer Quarry: https://istraga.ba/satelitski-snimci-otkrivaju-kamenolom-iznad-donje-jablanice-je-bio-aktivan-u-avgustu-ove-godine-masine-su-ilegalno-iskopavale-kamen/ (last accessed: 17/10/2024)
[3] Law on Forests and Greenery of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina: https://fbihvlada.gov.ba/bosanski/zakoni/2002/zakoni/13%20boszakon%20o%20sumama.htm#:~:text=Ovim%20zakonom%20ure%C4%91uje%20se%20o%C4%8Duvanje%20i%20za%C5%A1tita%20%C5%A1uma%2C,kaznena%20i%20druga%20pitanja%20vezana%20za%20upravljanje%20%C5%A1umama. (last accessed: 17/10/2024)
[4] Ten Years after the May Floods: https://n1info.rs/zeleni-kutak/deset-godina-majskih-poplava-da-li-su-za-katastrofu-2014-bile-krive-klimatske-promene/ (last accessed: 17/10/2024)
[5] Nermin Nikšić is a politician from the Social Democratic Party of Bosnia and Herzegovina, in which he served as the president of the Party between his mandates from 2011-2015 as Prime minister and now. Incidentally, Nikšić hails from the city of Konjic, which was also flooded.
[6] Hydro-Metrological Society of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina: https://www.fhmzbih.gov.ba/ (last accessed: 17/10/2024)
[7] Meanwhile, the elections in these four municipalities took place on October 20th.
[8] Federal Government declares end of Natural Disaster https://www.euronews.rs/evropa/region/141513/vlada-fbih-prestanak-stanja-prirodne-nesrece-pomoc-domacinstvima-od-270000-evra/ (last accessed: 17/10/2024)
[9] School in Jablanica badly damaged, 500 students without heating: https://www.klix.ba/vijesti/bih/skola-u-jablanici-pretrpjela-veliku-stetu-500-ucenika-bez-adekvatnog-grijanja/24102214 (last accessed: 11/11/2024)
[10] Millions in losses for the Bosnian Economy https://www.dw.com/sr/poplave-u-bih-privredi-prete-milionski-gubici/a-70522225 (last accessed: 17/10/2024)
[11]Investigation opened on the case of Ecocide on Crni vrh in Tešanj https://zosradio.ba/index.php/2024/07/01/tuzilastvo-ks-otvorilo-istragu-o-ekocidu-na-crnom-vrhu-kod-tesnja/ (last accessed: 17/10/2024)
[12] The Brave Women of Kruščica: https://www.slobodnaevropa.org/a/bih-kruscica-nagrada-euronatur/30101398.html (last accessed: 17/10/2024)
[13] Construction of a mini hydro plant starts on the spring of the Una River: https://www.slobodnaevropa.org/a/izvor-une-gracac-hrvatska/33052111.html (last accessed: 17/10/2024). In the meantime construction of the hydroplant have stopped after activists from Croatia and Bosnia came together to
[14] Lithium found in Bosnia and Herzegovina: https://radiosarajevo.ba/vijesti/bosna-i-hercegovina/pronaden-litijum-u-bosni-i-hercegovini-procjene-kazu-vrijedan-je-vise-milijardi-km/516694 (last accessed: 17/10/2024)
[15] Devastation of Forests in Northern Bosnia https://www.slobodnaevropa.org/a/pusto%C5%A1enje-%C5%A1ume-na-sjeveru-bosne-i-hercegovine/31231453.html (last accessed: 27/11/2024)
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