The fourth of October 2024 fundamentally changed the lives of the residents of Donja Jablanica. Nineteen people died in the floods, and many homes were destroyed.
Some are still placed in temporary accommodation and are waiting to move into new homes, but some, despite the trauma, have decided to return to Donja Jablanica.
The Maslo family returned to Donja Jablanica after fourteen months of devastating floods.
“My own house, but I’ve been here for 34 years, I gave birth to my children there, spent all those 20 years beautifully, children and everything. There was also a house and a meadow and a garden and a plot, everything that was needed, so I was just waiting for us to come back,” says Adisa Maslo from Donja Jablanica.
“We visited other people’s apartments, tenants, relatives. We visited everything there was. There was no other solution,” adds Emir Maslo.
Four families from Donja Jablanica are still living in a container settlement, or temporary accommodation, because their houses were destroyed in the floods. In addition to them, four families from the village of Zlate also live there. The families are waiting for the construction or completion of the works, so that they can move into their new homes.
“We have been living in containers here for more than a year, and now, here we are, waiting for the construction of a house from the European Union. The papers are all ready, now we have to wait for the construction to start… We are impatient, we are waiting,” explains Mersiha Begović from Donja Jablanica.
“As for the houses, the people who have been affected, I think that everyone is involved in some way. Some through the organization Pomozi.ba, some received support from the Islamic Community, some from the Red Cross, some from the European Union. Some are repairing their houses, some will have new ones built, but somehow, as I said, everything is going slowly,” says the president of the Donja Jablanica Local Community, Ćamila Imamović.
The Municipality of Jablanica hopes that this year will be a year of construction.
“There are 16 buildings in Donja Jablanica, and you could see that some of the buildings are on two floors. There are about 23 of them. As for this building, which is being implemented by the Ministry of Displaced Persons, there will be eight apartments, and the UNDP building will have another 16 apartments,” said the Deputy Mayor of Jablanica Municipality Nermin Kovačević.
The investigation into the Donja Jablanica case is a top priority, and all actions are being taken to fully and objectively determine all relevant facts and circumstances in this case, according to the Special Department for Suppression of Corruption, Organized and Intercantonal Crime of the Federal Prosecutor’s Office of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
