Semir effendi Jahic, the imam of the mosque in Donja Jablanica, confirmed that a meeting between local residents and municipal authorities had been announced, with concrete questions posed and specific answers expected. Otherwise, as he added, a blockade of the M-17 highway has been announced.
Jahic stated that it is his duty, both as an imam and a resident of this affected area, to attend the meeting and support his congregants and neighbors in their fight for their rights.
“What are the plans for this settlement? Is life here even possible? When will the reconstruction of residential and religious buildings continue? We need to know the direction everything is taking, including the investigation of the material that came down from the hill,” he explained.
The residents of Donja Jablanica are disturbed because, according to Jahic, they received certain calls from the municipality offering them apartments elsewhere.
“And if they accepted, would they have to give up on Donja Jablanica? Some locals told me they feel that this offer implies Donja Jablanica has been written off, and marked as uninhabitable. These are the questions that concern the residents. When the machines fall silent, are these people going to be left to fend for themselves?” he asked the authorities.
The Jablanica imam also thanked the Central Election Commission (CEC) and the Municipal Election Commission for accepting the residents’ proposal to keep the polling station in Donja Jablanica. “This is our first message, our first victory – that we won’t allow the polling station to be moved out of Donja Jablanica. It is a message from our community that life here is possible, and that things will normalize,” he said.
Effendi Jahic took the opportunity to direct harsh criticism at local authorities, claiming that machines were only in Donja Jablanica during the visit of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and were soon withdrawn.
“I want to go back to the day of the funeral (for those who died in the floods and landslides) when I publicly called on people and the media not to forget us. This week has shown that we’ve been left to fend for ourselves. The evidence is clear. Everyone who has spent time in Donja Jablanica can see that there is now only one or no machines left. The machines were here when Von der Leyen visited, and then they were withdrawn. All the promises we were given seem to be disappearing with the sunshine,” concluded Semir effendi Jahic.
To recall, 19 people lost their lives in this Herzegovinian village after floods and landslides, and the entire settlement was buried under rocks and mud. Railway traffic remains blocked, N1 writes.
