Authorities of the Republika Srpska (RS) entity, Serb-dominated part of Bosnia and Herzegovina, must solve the issue of migrants, entity President Milorad Dodik told reporters on Wednesday.

According to Dodik, there are currently some 20,000 migrants circulating “on these territories” who cannot leave elsewhere, and he deems that finding a solution to this problem is the biggest challenge.

“That's a problem that those at the level of Bosnia and Herzegovina created and they didn't want to solve it when we were saying it was necessary to close the border and ban the entry for migrants,” said Dodik.

Over 6,000 thousand migrants entered the country since the end of the last year, according to the state institutions, most of whom found a temporary shelter in the north-western Una-Sana Canton (USC) which is bordering Croatia. Upon their arrival in Bosnia, migrants express intention to seek asylum, as a part of the regular procedure, but very few apply for it. They say their final destination are the western Europe countries.

RS President said it was necessary to make sure migrants were not “walking freely in our cities and villages, and jeopardizing our people.”

Dodik quoted German Chancellor Sebastian Kurz as saying he was interested in Bosnia and Herzegovina and would like to achieve those interests here.

“Kurz says it is their interest to create migrant centres outside the European Union. He likes Bosnia and Herzegovina in order to place the migrants here,” added Dodik.