Una-Sana Canton’s Prime Minister Husein Roscic and mayors and heads of municipalities from the canton concluded that migrant families, women and children, from the Bihac area will be temporarily accommodated in the “Sedra” hotel.

“Women and children will be accommodated in the hotel ‘Sedra’ between the towns of Bihac and Cazin, in the next few days. The agreement with the owner of the facility is that all 400 rooms will be used and that migrants in the hotel will be taken care of by the European Commission,” Una-Sana Canton Prime Minister Husein Roscic said. “We’re also closing the Retirement home in Bihac and no one will be allowed to stay there. We’re also considering possible locations for reception centres because the competent institutions aren't doing their job.”

He noted that the Una-Sana Canton, local communities, the Red Cross organisation in Bihac and Velika Kladusa have not received any financial support from the state.

Bihac Mayor Suhret Fazlic also spoke of the difficult situation in this town.

“The situation is getting worse for the migrants as well as for the residents. We’re getting citizens’ petitions almost daily. Unfortunately, incidents and conflicts are unavoidable and the situation requires an urgent solution,” Fazlic said. “We’ll tolerate this situation for a little longer but if nothing changes we’ll close all the buildings where migrants are now.”

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.