[Translation prepared by Business & Human Rights Resource Centre]

'We can't even open a window': The impact of mining on the environment in Bor, 18 July 2024

...Suzana Jovanović from the Sever settlement believes that she lives in one of the most endangered settlements in Bor.

She says that noise is heard every day from the nearby mining strip, which sends up clouds of dust.

"We are not allowed to go outside, nor open the window. There is so much dust that we cannot even clean the house," explains Suzana Jovanović.

She fears the consequences of living in such conditions and notices that there are more and more asthmatics in her environment.

Her next-door neighbor, Roksanda Tasić (86), shares a similar fate. She lives alone in a dilapidated building built between the two world wars.

She was given forced accommodation in the Sever settlement for a month more than half a century ago and remained there for a full 56 years.

"Life is hard here. We are exposed to dust. There is a mine nearby, and the entire building is shaking from the blasting. The walls are cracked in all the rooms," Roksanda Tasić tells RFE/RL.

She claims that she lacks basic living conditions. She also believes that decades of pollution have jeopardized her health...

The Zijin company, however, presents a different picture.

In their response to RFE/RL, they state that the parameters of the harmful impact have been significantly reduced after Ziđin has taken measures to protect the environment in recent years.

The company also sent RFE/RL a report on air quality measurements from six measuring stations in Bor, which relate to the concentration of arsenic in the air in 2016 and 2017, as well as for 2023 and part of 2024...