Balkan river known for its breath-taking scenery becomes floating rubbish dump

Published

2 years ago

January 21, 2023

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Tonnes of waste – including plastic bottles, used tyres and fridge freezers – has turned a river known for its emerald colour and outstanding scenery into a floating rubbish dump.

The Drina River in Visegrad in eastern Bosnia-Herzegovina has been left crammed with rubbish following wet weather.

Waste from poorly regulated riverside landfills has accumulated behind a barrier in the river, leaving a vast carpet of pollution which stretches across the width of the water.

Rusty barrels, household appliances, driftwood and other rubbish picked up by the river from its tributaries have all been trapped by fencing installed by a Bosnian hydroelectric plant, a few kilometres upstream from its dam.

Environmental activists say the resulting blockage has turned the town into an unofficial regional waste site.

Heavy rain and unseasonably warm weather over the past week have caused many rivers and streams in Bosnia, Serbia and Montenegro to overflow, flooding the surrounding areas and forcing scores of people from their homes.

‘Huge inflow of garbage’

Temperatures dropped in many areas on Friday as rain turned into snow.

This is not the first time the area has become full of rubbish, with the same situation occurring in 2021, endangering the local ecosystem and people’s health.

Dejan Furtula, of the environmental group Eko Centar Visegrad, said: “We had a lot of rainfall and torrential floods in recent days and a huge inflow of water from [the Drina’s tributaries in] Montenegro which is now, fortunately, subsiding.

“Unfortunately, the huge inflow of garbage has not ceased.”

The Drina River – which has an intense green colour due to the limestone terrain and is often enjoyed by rafters – runs 346km (215 miles) from the mountains of north western Montenegro through Serbia and Bosnia.

Around 10,000 cubic meters (more than 353,000 cubic feet) of waste are estimated to have collected behind the barrier in recent days. The same amount was pulled in recent years from that area of the river.

Health hazard

Removing the waste could take up to six months and will end up as landfill.

Mr Furtula said the local waste site “does not even have sufficient capacity to handle [the city’s] municipal waste. The fires on the landfill site are always burning.”

He called the conditions there “not just a huge environmental and health hazard, but also a big embarrassment for all of us.”

Three-and-a-half years of brutal warfare in the 1990s, which left 100,000 dead, has left the Balkans lagging behind Europe both economically and environmentally.

Despite seeking membership in the European Union and adopting some of the EU’s laws and regulations, the countries of the region have made little progress in building effective, environmentally sound waste disposal systems.

In addition to river pollution, many countries in the western Balkans are facing extremely high level of air pollution, with some towns among the most polluted on the planet.

World

The fight for the Arctic – where climate change is giving Russia room to manoeuvre

Published

6 hours ago

May 29, 2025

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The fight for the Arctic - where climate change is giving Russia room to manoeuvre

The twin threats of climate change and Russian malign activity in the Arctic must be taken “deadly seriously,” David Lammy has warned.

Sky News joined him on the furthest reaching tour of the Arctic by a British foreign secretary.

We travelled to Svalbard – a Norwegian archipelago that is the most northern settled land on Earth, 400 miles from the North Pole.

It is at the heart of an Arctic region facing growing geopolitical tension and feeling the brunt of climate change.

Mr Lammy told us the geopolitics of the region must be taken “deadly seriously” due to climate change and “the threats we’re seeing from Russia”.

We witnessed the direct impact of climate change along Svalbard’s coastline and inland waterways. There is less ice, we were told, compared to the past.

The melting ice is opening up the Arctic and allowing Russia more freedom to manoeuvre.

“We do see Russia’s shadow fleet using these waters,” Mr Lammy said. “We do see increased activity from submarines with nuclear capability under our waters and we do see hybrid sabotage of undersea cables at this time.”

In Tromso, further south, the foreign secretary was briefed by Norwegian military commanders.

Vice Admiral Rune Andersen, the Chief of Norwegian Joint Headquarters, told Sky News the Russian threat was explicit.

“Russia has stated that they are in confrontation with the West and are utilising a lot of hybrid methods to undermine Western security,” he said.

But it’s not just Vladimir Putin they’re worried about. Norwegian observers are concerned by US president Donald Trump’s strange relationship with the Russian leader too.

Karsten Friis, a Norwegian defence and security analyst, told Sky News: “If he’s too soft on Putin, if he is kind of normalising relations with Russia, I wouldn’t be surprised.

“I would expect Russia to push us, to test us, to push borders, to see what we can do as Europeans.”

Changes in the Arctic mean new challenges for the NATO military alliance – including stepping up activity to deter threats, most of all from Russia.

In Iceland, we toured a NATO airbase with the foreign secretary.

There, he said maintaining robust presence in the Arctic was essential for western security.

“Let’s be clear, in this challenging geopolitical moment the high north and the Arctic is a heavily contested arena and we should be under no doubt that NATO and the UK need to protect it for our own national security.”

This is also about distracting Russia, drawing away resources that could have been used in the war in Ukraine and deterring it in the future.

Because the more Arctic opens up, the more this once pristine wilderness is becoming the arena of national rivalry and potentially conflict.

World

‘What did they do to be burned and bombed?’: Charity calls on UK to offer Gaza children life-saving treatment

Published

12 hours ago

May 29, 2025

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'What did they do to be burned and bombed?': Charity calls on UK to offer Gaza children life-saving treatment

A British charity has written to the prime minister and foreign secretary, urging them to allow seriously ill children from Gaza into the UK to receive life-saving medical treatment.

Warning: This article contains images readers may find distressing

The co-founder of Project Pure Hope told Sky News it was way past the time for words.

“Now, we need action,” Omar Dinn said.

He’s identified two children inside Gaza who urgently need help and is appealing to the UK government to issue visas as a matter of urgency.

Israel-Gaza latest: Netanyahu reportedly accepts US ceasefire plan

Britain has taken only two patients from Gaza for medical treatment in 20 months of Israeli bombardment.

“Most of the people affected by this catastrophe that’s unfolding in Gaza are children,” he continued. “And children are the most vulnerable.

“They have nothing to do with the politics, and we really just need to see them for what they are.

“They are children, just like my children, just like everybody’s children in this country – and we have the ability to help them.”

Sky News has been sent video blogs from British surgeons working in Gaza right now which show the conditions and difficulties they’re working under.

They prepare for potential immediate evacuation whilst facing long lists, mainly of children, needing life-saving emergency treatment day after day.

Dr Victoria Rose told us: “Every time I come, I say it’s really bad, but this is on a completely different scale now. It’s mass casualties. It’s utter carnage.

“We are incapable of getting through this volume. We don’t have the personnel. We don’t have the medical supplies. And we really don’t have the facilities.

“We are the last standing hospital in the south of Gaza. We really are on our knees now.”

One of her patients is three-year-old Hatem, who was badly burned when an Israeli airstrike hit the family apartment.

His pregnant mother and father were both killed, leaving him an orphan. He has 35 percent burns on his small body.

“It’s a massive burn for a little guy like this,” Dr Rose says. “He’s so adorable. His eyelids are burnt. His hands are burnt. His feet are burnt.”

Hatem’s grandfather barely leaves his hospital bedside. Hatem Senior told us: “What did these children do wrong to suffer such injuries? To be burned and bombed? We ask God to grant them healing.”

The second child identified by the charity is Karam, who, aged one, is trying to survive in a tent in deeply unhygienic surroundings with a protruding intestine.

He’s suffering from a birth defect called Hirschsprung disease, which could be easily operated on with the right skills and equipment – unavailable to him in Gaza right now.

Karam’s mother Manal told our Gaza camera crew: “No matter how much I describe how much my son is suffering, I wouldn’t be able to describe it enough. I swear I am constantly crying.”

Children are among the bulk of casualties – some 16,000 have been killed, according to the latest figures from local health officials – and make up the majority of those being operated on, according to the British surgical team on the ground.