The Basic Prosecution Office in Prizren has announced that the Kosovo Police arrested 17 people on Wednesday on suspicion of polluting, degrading and destroying the environment around the Drini i Bardhë River in Prizren.
According to a press release issued to the media, the Prosecution suspects that the defendants violated the Law on Mines and Minerals, and that they excessively exploited natural resources by exploiting and processing sand and gravel.
The prosecution said that the defendants are suspected of having committed the criminal offenses of pollution, degradation and destruction of the environment, as well as causing general danger, due to the way they left the environment after the works.
In addition to those arrested, the Prosecution said that in the action carried out in 14 locations in the Prizren region, 38 vehicles that were used to commit the criminal offense were seized, including nine trucks, 14 excavators and 15 separation machines.
According to authorities, the total value of the seized equipment is around 2 million euros.
The 17 arrested people have been remanded in custody for 48 hours.
Kosovo is considered to have limited water resources, but even those, according to the Kosovo Environmental Protection Agency (KEPA), have been misused and polluted.
According to a report published in 2022 by this agency, it was found that most of Kosovo's rivers have been destroyed to such an extent that repairing the damage is impossible.
According to him, the river most damaged by gravel extraction is the longest river in Kosovo, the White Drini, which is 112 kilometers long./ REL (A2 Televizion)
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