Children playing in a park in Rasadnik, Kisela Voda, came across chunks of salami dusted with a white powder - right next to a children's playground. The Institute of Forensic Medicine confirmed the white powder is methomyl, sold under the trade name "Lanate" - a toxic insecticide long banned in both the EU and here at home because of how extreme its toxicity is.

The number that tells you the gravity fits into one sentence: a single gram of this insecticide can cause death in a person weighing 70 kilograms. The poison works through ingestion, inhalation and skin contact. Toxicologist Dr Andon Čibišev warns that the danger is direct even for the smallest: "A child could eat scattered salami out of sheer curiosity."

And this is no isolated case. Just on 15 May, in the same neighbourhood, a mass poisoning killed several pets and stray dogs and cats. Residents were already warning back then about suspicious food laced with white powder scattered near building entrances. In other words - the problem was known, reported, visible. And yet the poison turned up again, this time a step away from a children's playground.

This is an act that cannot be waved off as an "incident". When someone scatters a lethal poison where children play, that is not carelessness, it is an act with consequences measured in lives. Čibišev is demanding that the authorities react urgently, find those responsible and hand down strict penalties. Unauthorised handling of dangerous substances is punishable by prison under the Criminal Code.

What remains is the question every parent in that neighbourhood is asking themselves today. How many times does the same thing have to repeat, and how many lives - animal or human - have to be gambled, before someone reacts before the tragedy rather than after it? For now, their only defence is their own eyes. And that should not have to be enough in a city that has institutions paid for exactly this.