The auxiliary police unit is a necessity and will help active police units to cope with the challenges that among others include the migrant crisis, which is not likely to end soon, said Dragan Lukac, Internal Affairs Minister in Republika Srpska (RS), one of two Bosnia’s semi-autonomous entities.

RS Parliament adopted on Thursday controversial law changes which stipulate the formation of the auxiliary police unit, a move that politicians in other entity, the Federation (FBiH), said they were concerned about.

According to them, this would mean “arming the entity police with military firearms” so they warned that this unit might act as “an infantry.”

But, Minister Lukac believes this is a necessity, caused mostly by the migrant crisis in the country.

“We must have enough of organised officers who can protect our citizens and prevent crimes, to protect property of our citizens, because we can see (what is going on) in the Federation, where camps were set up and where migrants are frequently, on a daily basis committing crimes, from their mutual fights to attacks on the property of our citizens, rapes, even murders,” said Lukac in N1's programme, adding that those crimes must be put under control.

Commenting on Europe’s interest in the police unit that the entity plans to form, Lukac explained that their interest concerns the number of officers in this unit and respecting the European standards.

“We did not breach European standards. We have about 450 police officers but considering the dent in our territory, terrain configuration, we certainly need more officers to have it under control,” he said.

According to him, nobody should be afraid of the police and it would be good if the Federation formed one such unit as well.

“There’s no need to be afraid of the auxiliary unit, there is no need that they in the Federation threaten us they would form an auxiliary unit. I invite them to form an auxiliary unit because I believe that every policeman in streets of Bosnia and Herzegovina will contribute to the safety of our citizens,” the minister added.