Criminals, officers and stranger things
The Balkan route is back in the spotlight, Dodik’s saga in Bosnia and Herzegovina keeps getting weirder, and a mysterious political analyst in Albania. Also: tea and some seriously old dialects.
Hiya,
Welcome back! This, once again, is Balkan Brew - the newsletter that brings you the freshest news from the Balkans, every Friday. Hope you had a great week!
The talk of the town: Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, declared an epidemic this week after an outbreak of leptospirosis - likely spread by the large number of rats thriving in the city. Local authorities have launched a clean-up effort, even mobilizing young police cadets to help out.
This week has been packed: we’ll talk about shootings and court cases along the Balkan Route, the growing weirdness of the Dodik saga in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and a mysterious political analyst in Albania. But also: is Erdogan’s end near? And do you speak Grecanico?
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Criminals and officers
The Balkan Route is once again in the spotlight. It’s a pivotal moment for a corridor that’s been under constant pressure since at least 2015 - and in the chaos, it’s always the most vulnerable who suffer the most.
MASS SHOOTING. In the early hours of May 26, a shooting broke out between two smuggling gangs - one Afghan, one Pakistani - at the Blažuj reception center in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
SIRENS. Six people were injured and taken to the hospital, two in critical condition. Police arrested two young Afghans and are still searching for two other suspects.
SAME OLD FACES. Two sources told Tommi and his colleague at BIRN that BWK, the gang previously investigated in April, appears to be involved in the shooting.
A WAVE. This is at least the fifth shooting between smuggling gangs in BiH since the start of May. Citizens are scared, but it’s the migrants - the victims of smugglers - who pay the highest price.
CHARGES. In Greece, 17 coast guard officers have been charged by the Piraeus Naval Court over the 2023 Pylos shipwreck, which killed hundreds of people aboard an overloaded migrant boat.
MORE. The great journalists at Solomon have covered the story in depth, with several investigations detailing the Greek Coast Guard’s role.
ANOTHER ONE. Meanwhile, another group of 26 migrants deported from Italy has arrived at the camp in Albania - yet none of the concerns raised by NGOs and politicians about the state of the center have been addressed.
Stranger things
It’s been a while since we checked in on Milorad Dodik, President of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Republika Srpska. The State Court still wants him for refusing to show up in an investigation into his attacks on the Constitutional order.
The point is: Well, there’s no update. Dodik - along with RS Prime Minister Radovan Višković and RS National Assembly Speaker Nenad Stevandić (also wanted) - is... yep, still free (and regularly travelling to Moscow).
THE BIG LIMBO. The situation is so stuck that The Guardian’s Julian Borger came to Sarajevo to write an update about... well, the lack of updates. We feel you, Julian.
STRANGER THINGS #1. SIPA, the State Investigation and Protection Agency that RS authorities supposedly banned from operating in the entity, is - you guessed it - still working in Republika Srpska. And they’re happily cooperating with the RS Ministry of Interior, too.
STRANGER THINGS #2. The Serb member of the Presidency, Željka Cvijanović (a senior member of Dodik’s party, the Alliance of Independent Social-Democrats), is under US sanctions for undermining the Dayton Peace Agreement. Yet earlier this week, she traveled to the US to take part in a conference … marking the 30th anniversary of the DPA signing in Dayton.
OUR TAKE. Maybe it’s just us, but this is starting to feel way too surreal - even for BiH. Let’s see what happens next, especially with elections coming up next year...
Who the hell is Helen Bratt?
SAY MY NAME. Right after the last general elections in Albania, a small local site - Argumentum - published an analysis by a “political analyst” named Helen Bratt. The piece focused on the crisis inside the opposition Democratic Party after its election loss.
GOING TO THE TOP. The article went viral and got picked up by several major Albanian media outlets.
EXCEPT … There’s not much about Helen Bratt out there. BIRN tried to dig deeper, but couldn’t find much.
INFORMATION LAUNDERING? Experts told BIRN that Helen Bratt might not even be a real person - and that the article could be part of a disinformation campaign. Argumentum, for its part, says they published it because it was “well written and in the public interest.”
IN OTHER NEWS.
Is this the beginning of the end for Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan?
Montenegro’s parliament may soon debate giving women two days of menstrual leave.
Călin Georgescu, the pro-Russian populist candidate who won the first round of last year’s (annulled) presidential elections in Romania, says he’s quitting politics.
Thousands protested in Serbia, demanding the removal of a tent camp created three months ago by the pro-government group ‘Studenti 2.0.’
DO YOU SPEAK GRECANICO? Le Courrier des Balkans has a wonderful piece about Gallicianò, a remote village in southern Italy where a few hundred people still speak Grecanico - a dialect passed down from ancient Greek colonies that settled the area centuries before the current era.
AND FINALLY. If you’ve ever been to Turkey, you know how much people there love tea. You might think it’s a centuries-old tradition. But surprisingly, tea didn’t become widely popular in Turkey until the 1950s, when the Turkish Republic promoted tea cultivation and consumption as part of a development project.
That’s all for this week! Thanks as always for reading, and for sticking with us. Got a suggestion or spotted a mistake? Just reply to this email. You can also find us on Bluesky or LinkedIn.
Until next week, take care
BB