Boban Kusturic, Director of the Helicopter Service of Republika Srpska (RS), has urged the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) to approve Serbia’s request to send helicopters to BiH and warned that the Ministry would “bear responsibility” for any endangerment of property or lives in the event of a fire if the request is not approved.
Kusturic stated that the entity’s helicopter service helicopter needs regular maintenance over the next seven to ten days due to heavy usage, and mentioned that three days ago, the helicopter dropped 140 tons of water in the municipality of Ljubinje, extinguishing fires even on the “line of demarcation” (which is an administrative line, not an actual demarcation line) and within the Federation of BiH (FBiH).
“I appeal once more to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to urgently approve the request of the Helicopter Unit of the Serbian Ministry of Internal Affairs to send a helicopter here. This would be the only helicopter fighting fires while our helicopter is being serviced. We currently have no means to combat any new fires,” Kusturic emphasized.
He asserted that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of BiH would be fully responsible for any endangerment of property or lives if they didn’t approve Serbia’s request to assist.
He mentioned that he had just spoken with the commander of the Helicopter Unit of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Serbia, who indicated their readiness to send a new helicopter with a bucket capacity of five tons.
Moreover, Kusturic announced that he would be the first to file a lawsuit if the request is not approved. He suggested that the only apparent issue is that the helicopter is Serbian, from Serbia, and nothing else.
“We have recently been extinguishing fires in the municipality of Gacko and have been saving ‘pure’ Bosniak villages if that means anything to them because as professionals, we do not differentiate based on skin color, nationality, or anything else. But it is obvious they do,” Kusturic stated.
It should be noted that neither the Helicopter Service nor the authorities of the RS entity requested the engagement of state helicopters, specifically aircraft of the Armed Forces of BiH (FBiH), to fight the fires, as has been confirmed multiple times by BiH institutions, N1 writes.
E.Dz.
