4,000 Sick in Gostivar, and the Argument Is About 2021: Who Will Sign the Report?

Over 4,000 people fell ill in Gostivar. Contaminated water in seven more settlements and in two rivers. Hyperchlorination that killed the faecal bacteria but bred new ones. And a political argument in which the two sides agree on exactly one thing: the guilty party is the other one.

Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski explained why the water in Gostivar still isn't drinkable: „With the hyperchlorination, new bacteria appeared in the installations themselves. I expect this challenge to be overcome and, once it is, I expect that water to be approved for drinking and use.”

The same day he swung back at the opposition: „We have over 400 complaints about poor-quality water in Gostivar. Nothing was done, zero.” He means the period when Venko Filipče was health minister. Nikola Micevski of VMRO-DPMNE extended the same line - around 400 analyses showed that people in some towns were drinking unsafe water, and the public was never informed.

What the opposition is demanding

SDSM wants not just political but criminal liability. Spokeswoman Bogdanka Kuzeska named names: health minister Sašo Klekovski, the head of the State Sanitary and Health Inspectorate, the directors of the relevant public health centres, and every official who, as she put it, knew what was happening, hid the information and took no measures.

„First, the institutions admitted their 'red lights' came on too late. While thousands of Gostivar residents were drinking water contaminated with faeces, nobody did anything,” Kuzeska said.

She also asked the question that is hardest to dodge: „Which institute carried out the analyses? Who signed the report? On the basis of which parameters was it declared safe?” The public, she says, still has not received an officially signed report on the analyses of the technical water.

Two sides talking about different years

This is a classic Macedonian argument. One side asks who answers for 2026. The other answers with 2021. Both claims can be true at once - and that is exactly why neither is an answer.

If there really are over 400 unprocessed complaints about poor water quality from the previous term, that is a matter for the prosecution, not a comeback line at a press conference. If institutions reacted too late this year and failed to inform the public in time, that too is a matter for the prosecution. Mickoski asked for precisely that - for prosecutors to investigate the old complaints and the responsible institutions.

Klekovski announced that 71 new cases were registered in the past 24 hours, suggesting the outbreak is easing. That is the number worth watching. Everything else, for now, is the distribution of blame for something that has already happened to 4,000 people.