An incident happened today at the center for treatment of drug addiction in Skopje’s Kisela Voda district, where local residents exchanged insults with patients coming to receive methadone therapy.

Police had to intervene and keep the two sides separate as the residents blocked the entrance to the center.

Citizens who live near the center complain that its patients are using drugs in the street, often discarding needles and other paraphernalia in the streets and parks, where their children are playing. Crime has become an issue for the neighborhood after the center opened 20 years ago.

The neighborhood was promised that the center will be relocated in the Gazi Baba industrial zone, but nothing has been done so far. Gazi Baba residents also object against having the center located in their district.