Tragedy in Čukarica still invisible for Belgrade mayor - ORS requests resignation

On March 12, in Belgrade's Roma settlement Čukarica, an accident occurred, when six children suffered severe injuries in the form of burns during the transmission line explosion, and one child died as a result. In addition to the fact that the public did not know about the event itself, we tried to make this topic visible, which we eventually succeeded in doing. As part of a series of activities that included daily communication with people from the settlement, going to the same, daily communication with the clinic, breaking through the media, and more, the movement informed the Commissioner for Equality about this problem, but also the Minister of Health Zlatibor Loncar and the Mayor of Belgrade, Zoran Radojicic.

We are surprised by the attitude of the media, the work of institutions, but also society towards this tragedy. From the fact that people did not want to stop and take the children to the hospital, that the ambulance thought someone was joking, to distorted media presentations of events, but also to ignorance and silence by certain institutions that we, the citizens of this country, authorized to solve such problems will enable a safe life for each of us.

As the Movement, we tried to respond to these negative phenomena, which included public announcements, but also the delivery of an open letter to all media. Considering that we assumed that certain competent institutions were responsible for this accident, and in order to substantiate it with evidence, we sent a letter to the Secretariat for Environmental Protection, and we also urged the City Center for Social Work of Belgrade to urgently resolve the issue of burying the deceased child.

As the accident happened in the area of ​​Belgrade, we sent a letter to the mayor of the city of Belgrade to urgently schedule a meeting to resolve the issue of the residents of this settlement due to unsafe living conditions. We did not receive an answer for a long period of time, until we were invited to a meeting on April 5, 2021, during which we even pointed out that we have donors for modular containers, just to resolve the issue as soon as possible and remove people from unsafe locations. The city should provide conditions for those containers with access to drinking water and electricity so that primarily children killed in the fire had as much adequate conditions for post-hospital recovery given the high degree of burns, where some children had up to 80% skin burns. The city asked us since they are not able to provide social housing for the residents of the settlement, to help the residents of the settlement to jointly send a signed application to the city expressing their consent to accept life in modular containers as a temporary solution. We compiled the application, the residents of the settlement signed it and forwarded it to the mayor's office on April 9. Since then, we have not received a response, regardless of the handful of emails and calls we sent to the mayor's office, while the injured children are still in catastrophic conditions without electricity and water with severe burns. Also, the Secretariat for Environmental Protection did not respond to our request. Why is everyone silent ???

Are Roma's lives worth so little, what did those children do wrong? Why are the competent institutions silent and not doing anything to ensure a minimum subsistence for those people and those children, where one child has already tragically died?

The movement believes that it can do better, which is why we are not sure that the city has done everything in its power and we get the impression that it is deliberately delaying solving this problem so that over time it becomes another unsolved and forgotten problem. On the one hand, we understand the complexity of this problem and potential problems in solving it, but on the other hand, we cannot understand the neglect of children's lives no matter how complex the topic and in that sense, we are worried about the answer from which we do not understand what has been done so far. what will be done or where it got stuck.

Given that the city invited us to a meeting and that they asked us for a request, we cannot understand this behavior. The least that can be done at this moment is to openly say whatever is in question, otherwise, it is inadmissible for a person who neglects his citizens to be the mayor. On this occasion, our Movement calls on Mayor Radojčić to make an obligation, both moral and as a pediatrician, but also legally as the leader of Belgrade, to come out and tell our community how far we have come in solving this problem.

It is inadmissible for the mayor to neglect his citizens, and it is even more inadmissible for a pediatrician, such as Radojčić, to play with children's lives. In that sense, we believe that whatever is in question should be said openly, which is an obstacle in solving this problem, while otherwise, we believe that it is correct for Mr. Radojicic to resign and leave the place of the mayor to someone who will fight more resolutely for the lives of Belgraders and who will not neglect the lives of Belgrade children due to the "complexity of the problem".

OPRE ROMA SERBIA