The dirtiest air in the world, the residents breathed in the past few weeks, the interior of Sarajevo. Excitement about it it was hardly up to now.

Extreme Smog Sarajevo in January photo: Bo Van Wyk/imago

SARAJEVO taz | So what, and how, in this Winter, the city of Sarajevo has never experienced. Although the air pollution was in the last few years, a Nuisance, but this time all records were broken. With values of up to 400 on the scale of the World Air Quality Index, in each city of over 600, stand Sarajevo share even in the last few weeks, several times at the top of the world.

The joke, "after all, we are awesome like that", shows the sense of Humor of the city's population, but some were not able to laugh about it. Because such values represent a high risk not only for old and sick people, but also for children and adults. The immune system is damaged, a headache, Nausea, and fatigue are direct consequences of this air pollution.

it Is the ignorance, the suffering to survive is the ability of a population, which is a year long siege and a Million artillery shells or is it the Lack of a protest culture that leads to this passivity? Only on Monday afternoon, several hundred people began to protest in front of the town hall, to grasp for Central Europeans hardly. Old citizens claim that the reason for this is that the traditional urban population is thinned out, and now uneducated people from the villages of the tone.

men kindle in the midst of this soup of cigarettes, and gaze in wonder and questioning to those who have obtained a protective mask. The municipal administration does not even think about to call for bans for the avalanche of mostly old cars that clog from morning to night the streets. A double Nuisance to motorists that when parked with the engine running.

As the mayor of the city, a member of the Muslim nationalist party SDA, suggested that citizens could use to have reduced prices the cable car to the mountain Trebevic and get some fresh air, he was not laughed at, but by many for his "blessing" praised. To demand of him to finally replace the old coal stoves by gas heaters – the plans for this are in the drawer, not many people at all in the sense.

But at least a few Hundred protesters called on Monday for finally more activity from the administration. Also, the media would fail to educate the population, says Faruk, one of the young protesters in front of city hall. The President of the Canton, Edin Forto of the non-nationalist reform party, Nasa Stranka demanded at the rally while driving bans, a stop in production in some of the companies and the solution to the heating problem. "But why his party has so far taken only a little, this claims to enforce?" asked Faruk.