While the institutions argue over whether the crisis in Gostivar is an epidemic or not, help set off from where it could move fastest - from the neighbouring municipalities. The City of Skopje sent tankers of drinking water, and bottle points sprang up on the ground. Solidarity, as usual in the Balkans, reacts faster than the bureaucracy.

Skopje Mayor Orce Gjorgjievski announced that the city had immediately dispatched tankers of safe water for the residents of Gostivar, while analyses into the cause of the mass stomach illnesses are still under way. „In moments like these there is no room for waiting - what is needed is a fast response, humanity and solidarity,” he said.

Gjorgjievski, in his capacity as president of the Association of Units of Local Self-Government, also appealed to other mayors to pitch in with help within their means. „Only united and in solidarity can we more easily handle this situation and give citizens the assurance that they are not alone,” he stated.

Help also arrived along party lines. The VMRO-DPMNE municipal committee in Gostivar supplied 20,000 bottles of water, with collection points spread across the city - from the centre and Kej Vardar to Ciglana and Pitarnica. A practical gesture, but one with a political signature too - because in the Balkans even a glass of water rarely arrives without a logo.

The picture is familiar, both moving and bitter at once. When the system meant to deliver clean tap water fails, tankers, bottles and other people's goodwill step in to take its place. The help is welcome and deserves recognition. But it is a patch, not a solution.

The real question stays unanswered as the water trucks roll towards Gostivar: how did it even come to a city being left without safe drinking water, and who will answer for the system that let it happen? The tankers will leave once the crisis passes. The cause - if it isn't fixed - will remain.