Goražde Citizens Against Building a Wall along the Drina River

The informal citizens' group "Save the Drina" from Goražde informed interested citizens today at an info booth set up in front of the Cultural Center in Goražde about their fight against the non-transparent process of building a riverbank fortification, i.e., building a wall on the Drina River through the very center of Goražde.

Their fight to save the Drina began in April 2020 with a protest gathering where they announced more radical measures if a more adequate solution for building a wall on the Drina River bank was not found. Citizens then signed the first petition in the Luka settlement, which had only one demand: STOP THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE WALL IN THE LUKA SETTLEMENT. After the petition was signed, representatives of the residents of the Luka settlement were invited to a meeting with the mayor, where both they and their struggle were belittled, making it more than clear that there was no room for constructive dialogue with the city authorities.

About a hundred citizens of Goražde then formed a "Human Shield" with their bodies, showing that they would defend the Drina with their bodies if necessary. In June, the first major protest walk "SAVE THE DRINA" was held, attended by about a thousand citizens of Goražde, where they clearly and unequivocally expressed their dissatisfaction with what had been done so far, as well as with the entire non-transparent process of building the riverbank fortification.

"We are not giving up on our fight to save the Drina. We demand action from the authorities regarding the controversial construction, and we repeat the question of how construction can proceed without a building permit and construction approval, without public discussions and citizen participation. We will not give up on our demands, because this is our river and our city, and we do not plan to allow it all to be destroyed for the sake of individual interests," states Amar Imamović, representative of the informal citizens' group Save the Drina.

We remind you that the floods that hit Goražde in early December 2010, due to heavy rainfall and the uncontrolled release of water from the HE "Piva" Mratinje, which caused total damage to the citizens of this city exceeding 15 million marks, were a sign for the local authorities that they had to take certain measures to prevent such a scenario from recurring. The municipal authorities at the time, and the current city authorities in Goražde, decided to build a new riverbank fortification.

After several years of delays and preparations, work on one section finally began in April 2019. A year later, the works are in the final phase. The value of the investment is around 10.5 million marks, and it is largely financed by loan funds from the World Bank. The continuity of the aforementioned actions, aimed at unjustified indebtedness of the citizens of Goražde, continued through public discussions in which, through skillfully rehearsed methods, all those who were later led before the WALL were bypassed.