Sarajevo police have started removing illegal migrants who occupied public areas in the Bosnian capital and took them to the nearby shelters. The police said they would proceed with the activities until all of the illegal migrants are gone from the streets.

“They were all accommodated in the Usivak immigration centre, while three persons were taken to the immigration centre in Istocno Sarajevo, because they previously committed offences, violated public order and peace. Those persons were put under control in this centre and will be transported out of Bosnia and Herzegovina,” said Suvada Kuldija, the spokesperson for Sarajevo Canton Ministry of Interior.

The goal of the police activities is to protect both the migrants and citizens. The migrants will live in more humane conditions and the citizens will feel safer, said the police.

According to the police, the migrants committed some 80 offences in Sarajevo over the past one-year period. The Interior Ministry does not find these figures worrying. What worries them is that those are mostly the migrants of unknown identity.

“We need to determine the identity of the persons on the streets of Sarajevo Canton, to find out who they are, to take their biometric data and to put those persons under control,” noted Kuldija.

Bosnia has been struggling with the migrant crisis for the whole past year, after dozens of thousands of foreign nationals, coming from various Asian and African countries took to Bosnia, a route to their final destinations in western Europe.

The migrants, who said they had no intention to stay in Bosnia, are now stranded in various parts of the country, hoping they would eventually enter Croatia and go further to other European countries. Croatia won't let them in, as the larger part of the migrants are illegal and posses no valid documents proving their origin.

Thousands have entered the country since the beginning of the year. But, thousands were also prevented from crossing the Bosnian border, according to the Border Police.

“6,464 persons were prevented in the period January 1 – July 1, 2019, from the attempted illegal entry on the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina from the territory of neighbouring countries, where they were returned. The largest number of persons were prevented from entering in the area of the municipalities Visegrad, Zvornik and Bijeljina (eastern Bosnia), where the state border mostly follows the Drina river towards the Republic of Serbia,” the Border Police said.