Bosnia’s Border Police officials met Tuesday to discuss the results and activities in preventing illegal migrations over the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina and concluded that the Border Police prevented or treated some 1,800 illegal entrances into the country from the direction of Trebinje (Southern Bosnia).

Border Police Deputy Director Fahrudin Halac, Head of the Professional Standards and Internal Control Office Vladimir Popovic and Head of the Operations Management Department Predrag Radojicic held a working meeting, Tuesday, with Milenko Kujundzic, Commander of the Trebinje Border Police Unit.

During the first six months of this year, Police officers in the Trebinje Border Zone prevented or treated 1,831 persons from the high migration risk countries who entered or attempted to enter the country illegally.

Border Police Deputy Director Fahrudin Halac said that the Border Police has been implementing measures from the Plan for Extraordinary Engagement of Police Officers and Equipment in the Zones of Responsibility of Units Affected by Increased Migration Pressures, from October 2017. The plan involves maximum engagement of all available personnel, material and technical resources.

“Estimates on the reassignment of officers are based on security analysis, frequency of crossings at individual border crossings and the available personnel, material and technical resources in individual units,” Halac said, adding that the engagement of police officers from the Republika Srpska (RS) entity Interior Ministry, who were dispatched in the territory of eastern Herzegovina with the State Border Police, represents a significant step forward in the fight against illegal migrations.

He underlined that the Border Police undertakes a number of preventive and repressive measures and operations aimed at monitoring the state border.

The meeting interlocutors highlighted the good cooperation with the Foreign Affairs Service of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the RS Interior Ministry, as well as all the bodies in Bosnia and neighbouring countries relevant to illegal migration issues.  

Bosnia and Herzegovina has found itself in the centre of a new migrant route towards Western Europe and from the beginning of 2018, Bosnian institutions recorded some 7,000 illegal border crossings. Estimates are that some 4,000 migrants are in Bosnia right now, of which nearly 3,000 are based in the northern part of Bosnia, the towns of Bihac and Velika Kladusa, close to the Croatian border.

The State Border Police lacks some 500 police officers to oversee the state border properly, but due to a state monitoring on employment in public institutions and companies, they were forced to ask for assistance from other law enforcement institutions.