- Title: Divided Kosovo village unites in protest against hydropower plant
- Date: 11th October 2019
- Summary: BITI E POSHTME, KOSOVO (OCTOBER 11, 2019) (REUTERS) PERSON CROSSING LEPENC RIVER SHEPHERD WITH SHEEP VARIOUS OF SHEEP WALKING DOWN ESCARPMENT RIVER VARIOUS OF FAMILIES ARRIVING TO PROTEST (SOUNDBITE) (Albanian) MOTHER OF THREE, QEFSERE FETAHU, SAYING: "My children have no future (without the river), if it comes to that, all we who live here, we have to move from this place. There is no living here without water." PEOPLE WALKING TO PROTEST (SOUNDBITE) (Albanian) MOTHER OF THREE, QEFSERE FETAHU, SAYING: "I have three children, my son was injured from police teargas the other day. My husband was arrested, all three children saw when he was slammed down on the ground by the police. They are traumatized." MEN WALKING TOWARDS TUBING METAL HYDRO PLANT TUBE, PEOPLE LOOKING ON MEN LOOKING AT PARTLY BURIED TUBE PARTLY BURIED TUBE POLICE OFFICER EXITING VEHICLE, POLICE CAR ARRIVING LINE OF POLICE OFFICERS FACING LINE OF PROTESTERS (SOUNDBITE) (Serbian) ECONOMIST, ZVONKO MIHAJLOVIC, SAYING: "If this damaging plant is completed, the people will live worse and many will decide to leave this area." POLICE OFFICERS PATROLLING, RIVER, TUBES LAYING ON GROUND TUBES LAYING ON GROUND VARIOUS OF POLICE OFFICERS WALKING TOWARDS TUBE (SOUNDBITE) (Albanian) MOUNTAIN CLIMBER, UTA IBRAHIMI, SAYING: "We don't understand that our natural beauties are our treasure, people that are involved in tourism know this. Tourists arrive here because Kosovo has wild nature and if we put our rivers in tubes, what will we have to show then?" VARIOUS OF UNFINISHED DAM ON LEPENC RIVER VARIOUS OF PROTESTERS POLICE AND PROTESTERS
- Embargoed: 25th October 2019 16:34
- Keywords: Kosovo protest Albanians in Kosovo Serbs in Kosovo Brezovica mountain hydropower plant
- Location: BITI E POSHTME, KOSOVO
- City: BITI E POSHTME, KOSOVO
- Country: Kosovo
- Topics: Environment
- Reuters ID: LVA001B0NL54P
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text:Kosovo Albanians and their Serb neighbours, who have lived separate lives in their village for decades, united on Friday (October 11) to protest against the building of a hydropower plant which they say will deprive them of water and all-important raspberry crop.
Police used pepper spray on Tuesday (October 10) to disperse the villagers who were trying to stop the bulldozers moving in. More than 20, including women and children, were wounded.
The ethnic Albanian majority and small Serb minority in the village of Biti E Poshtme said the plant would dry the river bed below the Brezovica mountain, Kosovo's biggest and most famous ski resort.
They waved placards saying "Lepenc (the river) is our water and our food" and "Water is life" as they marched through the village watched by dozens of police and NATO peacekeepers from Poland.
Protests have been held almost every week, but without success. Buldozers have begun installing metal tubes, part of the hydropower pipeline.
"If they bury our river we have to leave our homes," said Fatlume Rushiti, 27, who came to protest close to her home with her two daughters. "We are fighting for the future of our children," she added.
The biggest income for the families is their raspberry crop.
If the hydropower project goes ahead "the people will have to leave this area as they cannot survive," said Zvonko Mihajlovic, a Serb economist living in the area.
The Lepenc river is part of the biggest ski resort in the country, with high, forested alpine terrain.
More than 80 small hydro plants are planned for Kosovo as the government pushes to increase electricity production from renewable sources.
Kosovo produces only 2 percent of its power from renewable sources. The remainder is produced by two ailing coal-fired power plants.
Under plans being considered by governments, nearly 3,000 hydropower plants could be built across the Western Balkans, with about a third of them in protected areas, which has prompted a series of protests in Bosnia, Serbia and Montenegro.
Last month, environmental campaigners urged the European Union to curb the number of small hydropower projects by pressing for more stringent environmental legislation and a more cost-effective subsidy system.
Montenegro in May decided to stop issuing permits for the construction of small hydropower plants and to reconsider those awarded so far.
Uta Ibrahimi, the first Kosovo woman to reach the top of Mount Everest, joined the protests on Friday despite a broken leg.
"We don't understand that our natural beauties are our treasure," Ibrahimi said. "Tourists come here because Kosovo (nature) is wild and if we put our rivers in tubes, what do we have to put on show?"
(Production: Bardh Krisniqi, Dominik Starosz, Fatos Bytyci) - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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