(Sarajevo) The Sarajevo region declared a state of alert on Wednesday, with the Bosnian capital once again on the podium of the most polluted cities in the world with a concentration of fine particles 47 times higher than the WHO threshold. .
Posted at 11:13 a.m.
In the afternoon, the air quality index was 320, according to data from the Swiss company IQ Air which measures air pollution worldwide, making Sarajevo the 2e most polluted city in the world behind Dhaka. Above 300, the situation is considered dangerous.
Pollution peaks are frequent in Sarajevo, a city of more than 400,000 inhabitants surrounded by mountains where temperatures plunge in winter.
“The biggest problem is individual heating,” explains Anes Podic, president of the environmental association Eko-akcija, “30,000 to 40,000 households use solid fuels, mainly wood. They burn damp wood in very poor quality stoves, and we then have very high emissions.”
But the government “does not want to resolve the problem,” he says, “as a result, we are often at the top of the blacklists [de la pollution] next to much larger cities that have 10, 20 or 30 million inhabitants.”
The effects on populations are known: according to a UN study published in 2019, air pollution is responsible for 20% of premature deaths in 19 Balkan cities, and Balkan residents lose up to 1, 3 year of life due to air pollution.
-“In Sarajevo, one in twelve deaths is caused by lung cancer,” explains Mr. Podic.
“I feel symptoms, but I have gotten so used to it, it’s almost daily,” Ognjen Grujic, 46, explains to AFP, mask on his nose.
Accentuated by climate change, air pollution increases the risk of respiratory diseases, cardiovascular accidents, diabetes or cancer and has, according to some experts, effects comparable to, or even greater than, those of tobacco or tobacco. ‘alcohol.
In Sarajevo, the only escape is in the mountains.
“It is very difficult to breathe and live in Sarajevo during these periods of smog,” explains Senada Dzaka, a 66-year-old retiree. “Sometimes it’s like this for several days in a row and it makes people depressed. It would be really difficult to live if we didn’t have the opportunity to go to the mountains,” she adds from the top of Mount Trebevic, looking at the city enveloped in a thick cloud of pollution.
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