Thousands Protest in Croatia, Demanding Government Clean Up Toxic Waste

“This is not a tragedy, this is a crime,” demonstrator Ivan Rittinger told The Associated Press as tens of thousands of people filled Zagreb to protest the hazardous waste scandal. The march became one of Croatia’s largest demonstrations in years, driven by anger over the government’s failure to remove a vast illegal dump near Gospic.

More than 30,000 tonnes of waste, including medical and industrial material, have been buried in the mountainous Lika region. Police and Europol arrested 13 people in February over the illegal import and dumping operation. Investigators said the waste had been brought from elsewhere in the European Union since 2023 and that the scheme generated more than $4 million before authorities uncovered it at an abandoned industrial site outside Gospic.

The dispute has intensified because government assurances conflict with a recent assessment by Croatia’s anticorruption agency. Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic visited the site last week and said the government had selected a contractor to begin the first phase of the cleanup. Croatian officials have also said soil and water tests showed no contamination around Gospic.

The anticorruption agency, however, reported elevated metal levels in the soil and detected PFAS chemicals in nearby groundwater. The chemicals are commonly known as “forever chemicals” because they persist for long periods. Protesters warned of risks to groundwater and public health, while opponents accused Plenkovic’s conservative government of corruption and of concealing the pollution’s true scale.

Organisers demanded a complete cleanup plan with binding deadlines within 20 days and the removal of all buried waste within three months. The rally drew lawmakers from across the political spectrum, including members of the centre-left Social Democratic Party and Most. Vjekoslav Busic, who leads the Gospic Is Our Home community group, said the failure extended beyond any single official and questioned who had built the institutions that allowed the pollution to continue.

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This is not a tragedy, this is a crime.