Activists disrupt Serbia's mineral resources conference: You will not turn citizens into environmental refugees

(Patria) - Members of the Serbian Alliance of Environmental Organizations (SEOS) disrupted a conference on Serbia's mineral resources in Belgrade.

Aleksandar Jovanović Ćuta, leader of the Environmental Uprising, said that SEOS members disrupted the conference on Serbia's mineral resources to prevent the country's Minister of Mining and Energy, Dubravka Đedović Handanović, and her like-minded associates "from turning citizens into environmental refugees."

The activists stated that they thwarted the intention of "Dubravka Đedović's clique and foreign companies" to assign Serbian citizens "the fate of environmental refugees."

"We prevented this group from making billions while turning our country into a colony of mining companies," Jovanović said.

According to his account, there was jostling with security guards at the entrance to the ceremonial hall where the conference on Serbia's mineral resources was held, but no force was used.

In Serbia, mass protests against lithium mining were organized in late 2021 and early 2022, when the British-Australian company Rio Tinto planned to open a lithium mine in the Jadar river area.

Although the Serbian government, after those protests, made a decision halting all decisions related to the Rio Tinto project, members of the Alliance of Environmental Organizations have continued protests and actions, demanding a permanent ban on lithium mining in Serbia.