Kursumlija: Fifth Day of Blockade Over Cell Tower

A mobile phone base station in Kursumlija has kept one neighborhood on the street for a fifth straight day. Residents of Mikuljana have blocked Dr Voja Stojanovic Street since July 29, when preparatory work began on a plot in the middle of the neighborhood, and they say the blockade will stay in place until the question of an alternative location is opened. The gathering, they say, has been properly registered with police.

The disputed structure, including its foundation and antenna, would stand around 34 meters tall. The neighborhood is mostly single story, with most houses no taller than five to six meters, residents say. They stress that they are not against expanding the mobile network, only against the chosen site in a densely populated area, and voice concern about the possible health effects on people living right next to it.

“This is a densely populated area with family homes, mostly single or two story houses. Most buildings are no taller than five to six meters, while the cell tower itself, including its foundation and antenna, would stand around 34 meters,” said Aleksandar Agatonovic, a resident of the neighborhood.

Work began, he says, with a preparatory phase, and the blockade followed almost the same day. Since then the street has been closed in shifts, and no machinery has entered the plot.

Why Was the Same Site Unsuitable in 2023, but Not Now?

That question sits at the heart of the dispute. Agatonovic says the municipal body took the opposite position three years ago, while nothing on the ground has changed since then, not the density of houses, not the intended use of the plot.

“In 2023, the Municipal Assembly decided the location was not suitable for construction. Then in 2025 it was decided that it was suitable, even though nothing on the ground had changed,” Agatonovic said.

Residents want to establish on what basis the permit was issued and who changed the decision. They have also filed a criminal complaint against persons unknown over suspicions surrounding how the cell tower site was chosen. More than 100 signatures have been collected against construction on the plot.

What Residents Are Demanding

The demands are narrow and can be listed in full:

• a halt to work on the current plot
• consideration of an alternative site for the cell tower, outside the densely populated area
• an explanation for why the decision on the site’s suitability was changed

An alternative location exists for now only as a request from residents. No other plot has been formally offered to them, nor has any such review been publicly announced. If they get no answers from the municipality, residents say they will turn to the company’s headquarters abroad, through channels for compliance and sustainability complaints.

“This is a registered gathering, and we will keep blocking until our demands are met: an explanation of why the decision was changed and why this particular location was chosen over any alternative,” Agatonovic says.

Wednesday: Protest at the Municipality, Then the Highway

For Wednesday, August 5, at 9 a.m., a peaceful protest has been scheduled outside the Kursumlija municipal building, where residents expect officials to answer on the status of the permit and the possible relocation of the cell tower. If they get no answer, they have announced a blockade of the Nis to Pristina highway at the Kastrat interchange starting at 3 p.m. the same day. Both gatherings, they say, have been properly registered with police.

That would push a local dispute over a single plot onto the road that connects Nis with Pristina and carries transit traffic further south. A highway blockade in August affects travelers who have nothing to do with the disputed plot, and it is exactly the point at which cases like this stop being a municipal matter and become a question for national institutions.

A Pattern Repeating Across Southern Serbia

Mikuljana is not an isolated case. In Nis’s Pantelej neighborhood, residents recently took to the street three evenings in a row over the route of a high speed rail line. That project is far larger in scale, but the objection is of the same kind, about where infrastructure enters a neighborhood, and about the sense that a decision was made without the people who have to live next to it.

From that follows a practical calculation local authorities usually work out too late. When debate over a site’s location is skipped at the start, it does not disappear, it comes back in the form of a closed street, a registered protest, and a criminal complaint, with work left standing. In Mikuljana it has now been standing for five days.

The next date is already known, and it is a short one. By Wednesday morning it will be clear whether the municipality has an answer, and by afternoon it will be clear whether the blockade moves from the neighborhood street to the highway.