“In 99 percent of the cases they have no documents and they destroy all evidence on when and how they entered Bosnia so they wouldn’t be returned to the country they came from via readmission agreement,” Ujic said, adding that migrants then request an asylum and receive the confirmation on international protection which serves them then to roam the country.

The Service Director noted that migrants do not intend to remain in Bosnia, which they use as a transit area, and that they are trying to get out of the country every day. Some of them succeed in crossing the border.

The biggest pressure is on the Una-Sana Canton in the north of Bosnia to which migrants are flocking in an attempt to cross over into the Republic of Croatia, on their way to Western Europe. Ujic estimated that more than 3,000 migrants are currently residing in the said canton.

The Foreigners’ Affairs Service registered more than 7,900 migrants from the beginning of the year, who had no identification documents in 99 percent of the cases. The Service then took their biometric data in an attempt to determine their identity. Most of the migrants come from Pakistan, Syria and Afghanistan.

“Migrants are entering Bosnia from the EU (Greece, Bulgaria) and they want to be part of the EU. Therefore, the EU could deal with this issue a bit more and assist the Western Balkans’ countries in handling it,” Ujic concluded.

He warned that the neighbouring countries are not providing exact data so it is difficult to say whether there will be an increase or decrease in the migrant influx.