Answers are still awaited on the issue of guilt for the disaster in Donja Jablanica, in which 19 people died. The families of the victims are demanding accountability from the authorities and more transparent answers from the Cantonal Prosecutor’s Office, which, eight months after the disaster, is still determining whether there are grounds for filing an indictment.
Donja Jablanica should have been a priority for shedding light on the entire case and for the families of the victims to be offered answers, says Ajla Jahić, who was killed on October 4. She notes that the entire case is only in its initial phase and that the locals are not satisfied with the entire investigation process.
“They are still conducting investigative actions – for which, with this much evidence and, unfortunately, victims, a month is quite enough to prepare the entire procedure. It should have lasted longer, for the entire procedure to be formed in court or for it to be completed,” she believes.
Ajla has a law degree, but she says that in this case you don’t need to be an expert to see what is really at stake. Because, he emphasizes, floods and natural disasters happened that October 4 all over the country, and only in Donja Jablanica was such a large number of victims recorded.
“There is always a certain amount of natural force, but in Donja Jablanica we have to remind ourselves that it really was a stone. Why? We have the opportunity, we have pictures that we can see. I saw a hole in my grandmother’s head from a stone, from which she died”, says Ajla Jahić.
The locals demand the responsibility of those who allowed the construction of the disputed quarry above the village itself. They are also dissatisfied in the Municipality of Jablanica. They say they submitted all the documentation that was requested of them.
“What was up to the Municipality of Jablanica, we submitted everything that was requested from the Prosecutor’s Office, and it is in our interest here that the Prosecutor’s Office open the case a little more as soon as possible and that the process ends, so that we know the outcome of everything,” said Emir Muratović, the mayor of Jablanica.
Again a short answer from the Prosecutor’s Office and no concrete information. The analysis of the findings of a geological expert, which is considered key to the investigation, is underway, and was received more than a month ago:
“This is a large-scale finding that will be of great importance for the further course of the investigation, and related to the existing quarry, the finding is currently the subject of analysis. As for other investigative actions, the dynamics of collecting evidence and the type of investigative actions that are undertaken in the case are decided by the acting prosecutors.”
And life, the locals tell us, can hardly continue without answers because everything around them serves as a reminder of the disaster they survived. The village, they say, has been destroyed, but what hurts them more is the fact that there is still no one responsible for the deaths of so many of their neighbors, Federalna writes.
