Novi Pazar like the Wild West: Mass fights, shootings becoming more frequent, people are locking themselves up

Mass fight, shooting, serious theft... then round and round again - fights, shooting, car burning. Almost every day, information from Novi Pazar floods crime sections in local and national media. In some comments, you could hear that this city is slowly becoming "a small Mexico City," so we asked residents if and how safe they feel in there.

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"I feel great, incidents happen everywhere, so Novi Pazar is no exception. The media exaggerate the story a little. Although, I have to admit that they do it less now than before. Our city is known for its wonderful and hospitable people, everyone who comes once comes back again," a resident told RINA, and a younger woman shares his opinion.

However, a few meters away there were those who think differently and who no longer care about walking through the well-known streets at night or keeping their house unlocked.

"I never used to locked the house, now I do it all the time, my wife is afraid. There's s a lot of all kinds of stuff happening, the youth are unemployed and then they have time to do all sorts of things. When I was younger, I could travel all over the former Yugoslavia, no one asked you who you were or what you were, nor were there any problems. Now everything is different and unfortunately worse," adds this Novi Pazar local.

A fellow citizen is worried about the youth who are now growing up in the city located on the banks of the Raska River, because she says it is no longer safe to let children outside at any time of day.

"Of course it's becoming like Mexico. There is everything in Novi Pazar now - from drugs, prostitution, white slavery, other crime. I say again, I'm most afraid for our children because I don't know how to raise them, nor how to direct them," our interlocutor is honest.

Aleksandar Ivanovic, an expert on security in this city, stresses that when a series of incidents happen, it is logical for fear to emerge among people. However, the fact is that, unlike during some previous years, incidents in Novi Pazar no longer happen in broad daylight, but mostly during the night. He adds that it is necessary to analyze the causes of all these negative events and what we as a society can do to prevent this from happening.

"We also conducted research related to how safe women and girls feel in five public areas in Novi Pazar. We received data that they feel safe during the day, but that changes during the night and then they feel three times more unsafe. About 25 percent of women experienced some unpleasant situation, about 20 percent said they were victims of persecution or stalking, and about 20 percent witnessed a certain threat to public order and peace. They are most afraid of sexual assault, and we mapped those specific locations where we did the research, which were the city park, the quay, the pedestrian zone in the city center, the recreational center," Ivanovic said.

(Telegraf.rs)