Belgrade, Bor, Smederevo, Užice, Novi Sad, Niš, Valjevo are just some of the cities in Serbia where the air is extremely polluted for days, the pollution map of the Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) shows, and the authorities are doing nothing to prevent this catastrophic situation. solved, the Belgrade newspaper Danas writes today in the article "Citizens of Serbia are being killed by the air they breathe".
In Serbia, increased pollution occurs primarily due to heating with solid fuels, which is especially visible during the winter.
Elevated concentrations of PM10 particles in the air pose a danger to human health, especially for risk categories of the population, which include the elderly, chronically ill, children and pregnant women.
Director of the World Health Organization for Serbia, Marijan Ivanuša, recently told Danas that more than 6.000 people die in Serbia every year due to air pollution.
Vladimir Radojičić from the Initiative Ne davimo Beograd emphasizes that the residents of Valjevo, Bor, Smederevo, Belgrade, Kosjerić, and other cities are "literally facing the air that is killing us".
For this reason, the Initiative We Don't Drown Belgrade requires the authorities to immediately and without delay take short-term and long-term measures to protect the population.
"We especially want to point out that certain measured stations are deliberately turned off and that such irresponsibility of the authorities must stop immediately. We have a situation where President Vučić stated at the beginning of November that the problem of air pollution is present in our country one or two days a year and that he does not have time to respond to journalist questions. Official data for 2018 say the opposite of President Vučić. PM10 particles were above the permissible limit in Valjevo for 170 days, 154 days in Užice, 146 days in Smederevo, 132 days in Belgrade, 118 days in Sremska Mitrovica. In For Boro, the situation is even worse, and none of the competent institutions are reacting to it," Radojičić told Danas.
The civic initiative "Red Badges" announced yesterday that, when air pollution is at its highest, the station that measures it in the center of Smederevo repeatedly stopped sending data to online platforms that register data about it.
"On the websites that publish the pollution index, Smederevo is regularly in the third or fourth category, the first of which is harmful, and the second is a danger to people's health," they point out from "Crvenih badges", writes Danas.
The announcement states that according to the latest available data, Smederevo was the city with the most polluted air in Europe on Tuesday, but "it just happened that at that very moment the meter in the city center stopped working".
By the way, the biggest pollution in Smederevo comes from the Ironworks. Another cause is fuel oil boilers, as well as the burning of coal in households, according to Danas.
In Bor, citizens are protesting because of increased air pollution coming from the smelter and sulfuric acid factory "Zijin Koper" (Zijin Copper).
The protesting citizens claim that the increased concentration of harmful fumes and particles started when the new owner came and increased the volume of production.
The air in Nis is the most polluted
The night before yesterday, Nis was by far the city with the most polluted air in Serbia and the concentration of harmful substances seven times higher than the permitted values.
According to SEPA measurements, the concentration of PM 10 particles in the air in Nis on Tuesday at 20 pm was 367 micrograms per cubic meter.
In Belgrade the night before yesterday at 19 pm, the concentration of PM particles was 212 micrograms, in Valjevo 186, Novi Sad 117, Obrenovac 141, Kosjerić 102, Subotica 134 and Pančevo 146.
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