“Little
did Hasanovic know, both rivers around Obrenovac burst their banks,
the Sava and the Tamnava, and by now the 'water was almost up to our
knees, it was raining, there was a foul odor, and I simply could not
believe that we would be leaving our house without anything once
again'.”
“The
rain has stopped, yet the water is still rising, and the media has
only just begun to cover the worst
flooding to afflict Serbia and neighboring states in recorded
history.”
“As
Serbia sinks further into oblivion in front of an international
community selective about the natural disasters they choose to
assist, scores of people are dying and thousands are displaced.
Hasanovic’s hometown of Obrenovac, a sleepy town not to far from
the capital, Belgrade, now resembles an Eastern European version of
Venice – minus the pulchritude – as bodies are floating across
the streets – err, canals. Ninety
percent of the city is under water.”
“The
region’s worst flooding coupled with the fact that Serbia is one of
Europe’s
poorest countries spells a gloomy conclusion to one of mother
nature’s worst disasters so far this year. To make matters worse,
the international community slept on the story for more than 3 days
before really covering it. In those overlooked three days, 3
months of rainfall plummeted on Serbia and the Bosnian state of
Republika Srpska.”
“Even
when news outlets like the BBC or CNN began taking the story
‘seriously’, the only reporting came from meteorologists, whose
airtime
on the respective channels are both minimal compared to anchors and
foreign correspondents. Only after the Serbian tennis champion Novak
Djokovic lambasted the two news channels did they pick up their
reportages.”
“Understandably,
the biggest
democratic election was wrapping up in India, Turkey witnessed
its worst
mining disaster, and 300
innocent girls were kidnapped by terrorists in Nigeria, so
flooding in Serbia – at least on the first day – was behind in
the pecking order. After three days of minimal reports (i.e. news
tickers), and a mainstream media estimate of 40 dead and 25,000
displaced, the devastating floods clearly did not receive the right
publicity.”
“In the
end, the media had to step in, on ethical grounds at the very least.
Arguably still being underreported, and with more deathly drops of
rain scheduled for Thursday,
Serbia will only receive two types of publicity: negative publicity
or diminutive publicity. Because the spin can’t blame Serbia (Serbs
didn’t flood themselves), the type of publicity is clearly the
latter. This intentionally shy approach by Western media will forever
keep Serbia in the dark, and in the doldrums.”
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