Kosovo coal town fears cancer from pollution

Residents of Obilic, the Kosovo town beside the country's largest coal-fired power plants, say cancer fears are widespread as pollution from lignite coal remains a daily concern.

Jovan Zivic, whose cafe sits on the road to one of the plants, said he lost his teenage son to cancer in 2010 and his wife 14 years later. “There is no family that has not been affected,” he said.

Obilic produces almost all of Kosovo's electricity by burning lignite, the lowest-quality coal, from nearby pits. Kosovo's parliament has declared the town, which sits between two plants, an “environmentally endangered zone” because of persistent pollution.

The dangers of the area's air pollution are documented, but patchy cancer data makes it unclear whether residents develop the disease at a higher rate than people elsewhere in Kosovo.

Official monitoring in 2025 recorded an annual average concentration of fine particles in Obilic's air at more than twice the level recommended by the World Health Organization. Concentrations of coarser particles exceeded Kosovo's daily legal limit on 16 days.

Kosovo's National Institute of Public Health said in April that urgent measures were needed to curb pollution from thermal power plants, warning that without action deaths from cardiovascular and respiratory diseases could increase.

Chief State Prosecutor Zejnulla Gashi later announced an investigation into state-run power plants over suspected criminal “contamination, degradation and destruction of the environment”. He said it was the first such case handled by Kosovo's prosecutorial system.

International donors and Kosovo's government have committed tens of millions of euros to reducing pollution, including by modernising one plant in a project expected to cut emissions.