A Skopje resident has two metal plates in his joint because he tried to defend himself from dogs. He fell, broke the joint in several places and was operated on. That is not a topic for debate - it is a medical finding.

On Makedonska Vojska street in Gjorce Petrov, residents are warning that four dogs have been running loose for a long time and attacking passers-by, cyclists and motorcyclists. That is where the incident happened.

Kisela Voda: prams with babies

The same problem appeared in Kisela Voda, where, according to residents' accounts, a pack of dogs moved towards two mothers pushing prams with babies in them. The mothers were taking their children to nursery and managed to fend the dogs off.

The location is not random. That part of the neighbourhood has a school, two nurseries and the Frederic Chopin park - one of the busier spots in the area, with large numbers of children and parents passing through every day.

The case is spreading through local Facebook groups, where residents are demanding an urgent response from the authorities before something worse happens.

What the public shelter says

The company does not deny it. Director Vojislav Dimitrovski confirms they are aware of the problem and that crews have been out to the same location three times so far.

"We have reports and we have responded three times at the same location. The dogs are not always there when our crews arrive. Unfortunately, the dog has still not been found. Two crews are on the ground and we will keep at it until we catch it," Dimitrovski says.

He adds that he has instructed the company to get in touch with the injured residents. Reports are acted on within 24 hours, and information on locations needing intervention also comes from the City of Skopje.

The claim that changes the whole story

But the crucial thing the director says is not about the dogs. It is about people.

"This is a group of dogs that has been left there. In the photographs I did not see a single dog with an ear tag. We have been dealing with this for months and a large share of those dogs has already been caught, but the problem is that dogs keep being left at that location," Dimitrovski points out.

An ear tag is proof that a dog has gone through the catch, sterilise and release programme. Its absence means these animals were not strays before - they were brought there and abandoned.

The same thing, he says, is happening in Nerezi: "In Nerezi we also have a pack and we have information that someone is leaving the dogs there. We can go out and catch the animals, but we cannot investigate who is bringing them and leaving them."

Nobody has the power to find out who

This is where the system falls apart. The director of a public company states publicly that someone is repeatedly abandoning dogs at specific locations in Skopje - and in the same sentence explains that investigating it is not within his remit.

That is correct. His job is to catch and respond. But if the shelter works one location for months, catches the dogs, and they reappear - then the company is effectively cleaning up after somebody else, in an endless loop, and the bill is paid by the man with two plates in his joint and the mothers outside the nursery.

Abandoning an animal is neither ethically neutral nor legally invisible. The question no statement answered today is who in this country actually has the duty to find the person leaving them - and whether anyone has even once started looking.