A 68-year-old woman from Skopje reported to the Skopje police department at 8pm on September 28 that at around 3:30pm, in the family home in the Bit Pazar neighbourhood, she had been physically attacked by her own sister, N.M. (73). According to the report, the older sister used a metal object in the attack.

Police say that once the case is fully documented, an appropriate filing will follow. That's it. The bulletin says nothing about the injuries, or about what led up to it.

The Skopje case is not an isolated one in the police bulletins of recent days. In Prilep, at 3:20am on September 27, police detained A.A. (43), who had physically assaulted his 40-year-old wife in the family home. In Tetovo, police filed a criminal complaint for "bodily injury" against 26-year-old K.B., who attacked his sister - on April 5. The complaint arrives almost six months later. In Kumanovo, meanwhile, police detained a 19-year-old for physically assaulting an underage girl on Goce Delchev Street.

In three of the four cases the victim is a family member, and in two the attack happened in the family home - where nobody from outside is watching. The Skopje bulletin ends with the phrase "an appropriate filing will follow." The question is how many of those filings ever reach a verdict, and whether anyone in the system is even counting them.