The state, entities and cantons do not have social maps of the population. Which is why we have to rely on the statistics recorded by non-governmental organizations in our country regarding the official number of the poor.
Thus, according to the latest data, 27.7 percent of the population lives in poverty in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. That this figure is not far from the truth is also shown by data on the number of applicants for aid granted by the EU, and even more clearly supported by data on users of public kitchens in our country.
And they are worrying, because lines for a free meal have never been longer.
Demobilized fighter Hamza Ovčina from Tuzla is only one of nearly three thousand users of Merhamet’s National Kitchen Imaret, the largest in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Monthly incomes below the minimum, like most other beneficiaries, do not allow him to provide a regular meal.
“180 marks. That’s all I have and nothing more. I have no further income. Well, when you look at what you need, taxes, what will you have left? And it’s long for a month,” says Hamza.
In this kitchen, meals are prepared and distributed to users at 22 points in Tuzla, Lukavac, Gračanica and Kalesija. The number of users is increasing every day, and meals are also prepared in this soup kitchen for several hundred elderly users who, due to the impossibility of coming, have their food delivered to their doorstep.
“At the beginning of 2023, we had 2,600 users, now we have 2,840, and that speaks volumes for how much that number has increased compared to the beginning of the year,” explained Mensura Husanović, director of the Merhamet Tuzla Regional Board.
The Children’s National Kitchen, the only one of its kind in our country, has been operating in Lukavac for five years, backed by the altruistic association “Hands of Friendship” and in which, with the help of donors, meals are prepared for more than three hundred beneficiaries. Public kitchens in other cities of BiH also have their hands full. Between 600 and 800 meals are prepared every day in one of the public kitchens in Banja Luka. On weekends, that number exceeds a thousand. Every increase in price is reflected in the work of this kitchen.
“Every day it’s more and more, and we try to try to respond to the needs of all people, but sometimes we actually can’t,” says Miroslav Subašić, founder and manager of the public kitchen Mosaic of Friendship Banja Luka.
Gospava Matovina has been surviving for almost twenty years thanks to this public kitchen.
“It would be very difficult for them to survive. I have a child with special needs, a girl, a diagnosis of epilepsy, and I fight over what they say, how much – so much,” she states.
The sudden and high price increase of basic, but also of all other foodstuffs, is the cause of the increase in the number of users of the National Kitchen in Mostar as well. The queues are getting longer every day.
“We have a significant increase in requests from people who live in suburban areas. We manage by having good people and we still have donations. We survive somehow, we make ends meet,” explains Damir Džemat, manager of the Red Cross Mostar National Kitchen.
“Whatever they give, the children will eat. And I bring to the people, I don’t bring to myself, I do a favor, so that they too can eat, to have at least some bread. If anything, bread is the law,” said Jasmina Numić.
Poverty today is not just a lack of income. Poverty can also be seen as a violation of basic human rights and needs, such as food, water, clothing and a place to live.
While for those who have nothing, a piece of bread is, as they say, the law, the makers of real laws do not consider poverty a problem. Because 19,000 people in this country are waiting for a meal in front of the national kitchen, and the fact that there are fellow citizens who do not even have a piece of bread is the only picture of the real state of the state and society.
