Reacting to calls from the Security Minister for police to adopt a tougher stand toward migrants that have been flooding Bosnia for months, the head of the police in Bosnia’s Federation entity on Monday urged the Ministry to first do what it can to milden the migrant pressure.
The Director of the Interior Ministry of Bosnia's semi.autonomous Federation (FBiH) part, Dragan Lukac, said that police can act only after the Security Ministry fulfills its obligations regarding the migrant influx.
Lukac said he “does not know exactly” what Minister Dragan Mektic meant when he mentioned “a more repressive approach” by the police.
“There are people who requested asylum in Bosnia and Herzegovina who move across the entire territory of the country based on decisions made by Mektic’s Service for Foreigners Affairs, which is within the Security Ministry,” Lukac told N1.
“There are also people among them who have not registered or requested asylum. The third group is a large number of people who have requested asylum but have no personal documents on them,” he said.
Dealing with these categories of migrants is not the responsibility of the police, he said.
“The Security Minister should, in accordance with his competencies, solve all these issues within the scope of the Service for Foreigners Affairs” and then ask the police to act in accordance with those decisions, Lukac said.
“These people cannot be put behind some barbed wires, we cannot form camps where they would be staying, but there are clear legally defined actions that must be taken in regard to foreigners who come to any country due to various circumstances, including Bosnia and Herzegovina,” he said.
The pressure is mostly on the Una-Sana Canton, USK, in the west of the country where migrants who seek to enter the EU gather because it is the closest spot to Croatia and Slovenia, both EU members.
Residents of that canton have urged the government to do something about the migrants there, especially now that winter is coming. They claimed they can’t handle the situation anymore.
“We are constantly in contact with the police and the commissioner in USK,” Lukac said, adding that so far no requests for reinforcement has been received.
If such a request is made, “we will immediately respond,” he added.
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