A mother in Skopje reported that her five-year-old daughter told her a carer had hit her at a nursery in Hrom. According to the police bulletin, the report was filed with the Skopje police directorate, and the incident relates to 14 August - the child complained that the carer had squeezed her leg.

The same day, the interior ministry announced a second case, in Berovo. There things were formalised faster: a criminal complaint was filed against S.D. (33) on suspicion of the offence of „violence against a child”, after she stepped on a child's finger at the municipal nursery on 6 July. A second complaint was filed against A.D. (33), for „endangering safety”, because he directed threats at the first suspect inside the same institution.

Two nurseries, two towns, the same type of complaint in the same bulletin. That is not proof of a system - but it is reason enough for someone to look at the system.

The calculation parents make every morning

A parent who leaves a child at a nursery does so assuming the institution has a mechanism - supervision, training, a way to report and establish what happened. What stayed invisible in both cases is precisely that mechanism. The police filed the reports, not the institution. The information came through a police bulletin, not through an official response from the nursery or its founding authority.

One more detail deserves attention: the Berovo case happened on 6 July, and the report only reached the public now. Where was that month and a half?

What „measures are being taken” means

On both cases the authorities say measures are being taken to clarify matters. That is the standard formulation and at this stage it is fair enough - the procedure starts, and guilt is established inside it, not in a press release.

But there is a second, wider question that has nothing to do with who ends up charged. How many carers are there per group? What training and supervision do they get? Is there a reporting protocol that works inside the institution, before the matter ends up in a police bulletin?

Those are questions for the founding authority and the relevant ministry, not for the court. And not one of today's statements answers them.