Gostivar Experienced a Similar Mass Poisoning Incident in 2017

More than 2,900 people have been affected by the latest mass poisoning crisis in Gostivar, but suspicions over contaminated drinking water are not new to the city.

A similar situation was recorded in the autumn of 2017, when around 500 residents sought medical assistance at Gostivar General Hospital. Those affected experienced vomiting, diarrhea and high fever, while health authorities advised residents not to drink tap water until the analyses had been completed.

Checks conducted by teams from the Regional Public Health Center and the inspectorates ruled out the possibility of food poisoning. Attention and the main suspicions then turned to the quality of the water in the supply network.

At the time, the Municipality of Gostivar was governed by DUI, while Arben Taravari responded to the incident in harsh terms.

Taravari said: “Unfortunately, DUI continues to poison its citizens, this time not only politically, but now it has also harmed their health by poisoning hundreds of citizens, most of them young children, through its negligence and failure to act.”

He also rejected claims by the authorities at the time that the poisoning had not been caused by the water. According to him, no evidence had been presented to support such a conclusion, while medical experts suspected that bacteria were present in the drinking water.

After Taravari’s two terms at the helm of Gostivar, the city has been engulfed by a crisis on an even larger scale. The number of people affected has exceeded 2,900, while investigations have uncovered illegal pumps through which water from the Vardar River was fed into the water supply network. Three officials have been arrested, and the measure prohibiting the use of drinking water remains in force.