MINIĆ: REPUBLIKA SRPSKA GOVERNMENT TO PROVIDE FULL LEGAL ASSISTANCE TO THE LOZO FAMILY FROM MOSTAR

BANJA LUKA, JANUARY 30 /SRNA/ - Republika Srpska Prime Minister Savo Minić stated today that the Republika Srpska Government will provide full legal assistance to the Lozo family from Mostar, whose land in the Federation of BiH /FBiH/ is being seized for the illegal opening of a quarry, according to local residents.

"We see that the judiciary in the FBiH is once again using instruments of power to threaten returning Serb residents. The Republika Srpska Government will provide full legal assistance to the Lozo family from Mostar," Minić wrote X. In the village of Kuti, near Mostar, a real drama has been unfolding since early this morning, as residents are using their bodies to defend the land of their neighbors, Serb returnees, and are attempting to block the road to deminers hired by a foreign investor to clear the Zukulja hill site in their village, where a quarry is planned to be opened. One team of deminers nevertheless managed to reach the future quarry site early this morning. Around twenty deminers are currently on the ground, ready to work, while awaiting a team from the BiH Mine Action Center /BHMAC/, whose access road has been blocked by local residents, SRNA's correspondent reports. To make matters worse, half of the village of Kuti near Mostar has been served with a court order prohibiting them from preventing access to the Zukulja quarry via a public road that runs across land owned by Serb returnees in the village, specifically the Lozo family. Siniša Lozo says that Serb returnees no longer know what to do or whom to turn to in the face of what they describe as obvious discrimination and persecution. "They want to drive us out and seize our land. Let the whole world hear that in Mostar we have been given a court ban preventing us from coming onto our own land," Lozo said. For years, residents of Kuti, mostly Serb returnees and their Bosniak neighbors, have been trying to prevent what they claim is the illegal opening of a quarry, fearing that their village could become a new Donja Jablanica.