Popovikj: For 22 days Gostivar drank faecally contaminated water — here are 10 facts for prosecutor Saveski
Nearly 5,000 people ended up in hospitals, four weeks on no one has been held to account, and the prosecution is silent. SDSM has published the chronology of statements that contradict each other.
Four weeks after the mass water poisoning in Gostivar not a single proceeding has been opened, and the public prosecution remains silent to this day. Natasha Popovikj, a member of the SDSM Executive Board, therefore came before the media with a chronology she called "a folder of facts" and with a direct address to the prosecutor: "When Saveski gets back from his excursion, let him act immediately."
Popovikj began with the government's latest admission. "Health Minister Klekovski has finally spoken. He admitted that the water in Gostivar contained many different bacteria and viruses," she said, contrasting it with the claims made in July: "Yet Prime Minister Mickoski assured citizens that the water was technically safe." The key question, in her view, is how that was done without a single published document: "No analysis was ever published, nor who signed it, nor who authorised it."
The absence of accountability is the core of her address. "Four weeks have passed and no one is answering for the water poisoning in Gostivar. Citizens are waiting. And the prosecution is still silent. Until when?" Popovikj asked, adding the ironic remark that is being quoted most widely tonight: "Is prosecutor Saveski on an excursion as well? Here are 10 facts for prosecutor Saveski to act on."
The chronology she laid out begins long before the first official recommendations. According to Popovikj, the contamination of the water began on 25 June, while the first cases with poisoning symptoms were registered on 13 July, at a rate of 100 and then 200 new cases a day. There followed five days in which, as she put it, no one reacted and nothing was done, and the first recommendations were published on 18 July.
The heaviest part concerns the institution that was supposed to protect the public. Three days before it was announced that the water was contaminated, Popovikj stated, the Centre for Public Health in Tetovo issued a report saying the water was safe to drink. The result of that chronology is a figure she delivered slowly: "So for 22 days the citizens of Gostivar were being poisoned by water contaminated with faeces" — 4,700 poisoned citizens.
The second half of the "folder" is a sequence of mutually contradictory statements. On 23 July Prime Minister Mickoski announced technical water for use, and drinking water by the end of that same week. Then, Popovikj recalled, Minister Toshkovski explained that hyperchlorination was under way and "became an expert in water analysis", only to announce publicly on 27 July that Gostivar had received technical water that could be used for bathing but not for drinking. Not even then, SDSM claims, was any document or analysis published, nor the name of whoever approved and signed it.
On 3 August, a full week after Toshkovski's statement, director Stojanche Angelov announced that there was bacteria in the water in Gostivar. "So how did they tell people they could use the technical water for drinking and washing if there is bacteria in it? Total chaos and collapse," Popovikj said. The chain closed on 7 August, when Minister Klekovski announced that the water had contained many different bacteria and viruses, although only a week earlier he had been announcing that the water would soon be drinkable.
"Thousands of people have been poisoned. Nearly 5,000 people ended up in hospitals," Popovikj said, closing with a message that places responsibility where, according to the opposition, it now rests: "Everything is ready for Saveski, so when he gets back from his excursion, here it is waiting for him, let him act."
Photo: SDSM
