Protesters, police clash in Bosnia, 130 injured

Clashes between police and demonstrators in the northern Bosnian town of Tuzla have left over 130 people injured, most of them police officers, officials say.

On Thursday, thousands of people demonstrated in the town for a second day of protest against Bosnia’s social and economic woes, AFP reported.

Police used tear gas to disperse the protesters who threw stones at a local government building.

“Thirty protesters and 104 policemen were admitted during the day at the emergency services” in the northeastern town of Tuzla, hospital spokesman Adis Nisic said.

Tuzla police spokesman Izudin Saric said that “26 policeman, two of them seriously, and six protesters were injured,” adding that police arrested eight protesters.

On Wednesday, 14 people, mostly policemen, were also injured in Tuzla, while 22 people were arrested.

Tuzla is the third largest city in the former Yugoslav republic and the industrial heart of the north. Protesters accuse the authorities of turning a blind eye to the collapse of four companies after their privatization.

The former state-owned firms employed most of the population of Tuzla.

“I am 28 years old and I have been unemployed for more than 10 years. I cannot feed my children,” one of the protestors said.

“Protestors are not savages, there are many young people who have no hope of getting a job after graduating,” Sakib Kopic, one of the workers’ representatives, said.

There were also protests on Thursday in four other cities — Sarajevo, Zenica, Mostar and Bihac — in solidarity with the Tuzla workers.

The protesters in the capital Sarajevo threw eggs at the local government building.

Analysts believe that the protests point to deepening social unease over the state of the Bosnian economy and the political inertia in the country almost two decades since the end of its 1992-95 war.

Bosnia’s unemployment rate stands at 27.5 percent, the highest in the Balkans.