Thousands of refugees are not seeking asylum in Bosnia and Herzegovina or Serbia, but they make radical moves and trust smugglers, taking dangerous paths, said Tvrtko Barun, an activist of the Jesuit Refugee Service.

Speaking for N1, Barun explained that the matter of migrant route is a matter of cooperation and the lack thereof between the countries, adding that a lot is not functioning in Bosnia.

“That is a problem, it should be solved at the highest level, in order to help people, mostly those escaping wars,” said Barun. According to him, those refugees should be enabled to take legal paths and be provided with humanitarian visas.

The Jesuit Refugee Service is an international organization, assisting refugees, displaced persons and asylum seekers, operating at national and regional levels. It is operating in over 50 countries.

Commenting the recent accident in Croatia involving a van carrying migrants and police, which had to react, Barun assessed it as a traumatic event and said it was necessary to assist those persons in the asylum seeking procedure.

“We can help those people only through joint efforts of government organizations and NGO sector. The system, if we speak about integration, is not really functioning. Some are trying really hard, but there is no quality coordination. This is the void that the civil society enters and fill in, whenever the country lacks capacities,” said Barun.

He noted that there are highly educated but also illiterate persons among the asylum seekers, adding that the key elements of integration are language, accommodation and job.