Željka from Gospić delivers an emotional speech: “I live 50 meters from the waste, I am a mother afraid she will see her children suffer”

“Ordinary people have had enough, and you will not turn us into Europe’s toxic-waste dump.” With that warning, Željka Šikić addressed thousands of protesters gathered in central Zagreb for “Walk for Lika, Walk for Croatia.”

The demonstration was organized by the civic initiative Gospić Is Our Home. Protesters said the system must change from the ground up and demanded political responsibility for contaminated sites across Croatia. They called on residents to remain alert when remediation begins and report any suspicious trucks.

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Ordinary people have had enough, and you will not turn us into Europe’s toxic-waste dump.

Vjekoslav Bušić, speaking for the initiative, said the protesters had gathered because they shared the right to healthy living, clean air, uncontaminated soil and clean water. “We are not here because we wanted to be, but because we had to,” he said. He argued that the problem was not a lack of laws, but the failure to enforce them.

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We are not here because we wanted to be, but because we had to.

Bušić rejected the idea that criminal proceedings alone would settle the issue. He asked who had created the institutions, chosen the people responsible for protecting residents and allowed soil to be polluted for two and a half years. Protesters responded by chanting “Betrayal!”

Šikić, who lives 50 meters from the silo where waste was buried, thanked the crowd. She said their presence was helping her feel less abandoned and less alone. “Thank you for restoring my faith in people,” she said, describing Croatia as a country filled with environmental time bombs and urging that the story not be forgotten.

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Thank you for restoring my faith in people.