Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Security Minister Dragan Mektic said the migrant situation form 2015 must not happen again. His comment comes amid the ministerial meeting in Sarajevo on dealing with the migration issue in the region.

“We mustn’t approach this issue with disunity, in order to avoid the negative experiences from 2015. back then only some symbolic data was exchanged between states and then five to six thousand migrants showed up at the Bucharest train station,” Mektic recalled.

He stressed the importance of creating a single biometric database on migrants which will be compatible with the EU databases.

“We agreed that states must create a biometric database which must be compatible with the databases in Europe. We want to see whether those persons (migrants) ever stayed in Europe so we don’t get deceived by someone,” Mektic said. “We will see if our database will become part of the FRONTEX.”

The European Border and Coast Guard Agency (FRONTEX) is an agency of the European Union headquartered in Warsaw, Poland, tasked with border control of the European Schengen Area, in coordination with the border and coast guards of Schengen Area member states.

Mektic pointed to the need for the respect for bilateral and other agreements on readmission and strengthening of state service capacities.

Bosnia’s Refugees and Displaced Persons Minister Semiha Borovac said Bosnia took care of the migrants adequately.

“Our priority is creating accommodation capacities. We proved that migrants can receive all the help they need,” Borovac stressed.

The ministerial meeting on migration challenges in the Western Balkan region “Facing the challenges of mixed migration in the region – Security and humanitarian aspects” will be held Thursday in Sarajevo, attended by representatives of Greece, Macedonia, Albania, Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia, Croatia, Slovenia and Austria.