Residents of the northwestern town of Bihac, which has turned into a hub for migrants who still hope they would eventually cross borders and continue the journey to their final destinations in the European Union (EU), announced a protest for Friday as the migrant situation is escalating in that town.

The contracts with owners of two temporary shelters for migrants in the northwest of the country – ‘Miral’ and ‘Bira’ – is expiring on Friday and the authorities failed to find a location where they would provide accommodation for the migrants from the two shelters as well as the ‘Vucjak’ camp, which the EU institutions assessed as inadequate for this purpose.

Mostly barefoot and poorly dressed, hundreds of migrants sleep in tents without heating, waiting for their chance to cross the border and continue to their desired destinations.

Some of them have been in this camp for months.

While the European Parliament wants the local authorities to urgently shut the camp down, the City Assembly of Bihac adopted a conclusion rejecting to relocate the migrants from the ‘Vucjak’ camp to ‘Bira’.

Also, the local authorities demand that ‘Bira’ is closed and it offered Lipa site as the only location to set up a new camp.

Bihac residents agree and want ‘Bira’ centre, which is located in urban parts of the town, to be closed down. To raise their voice, they announced a protest for Friday.

“I will go to the protest tomorrow and I believe most of our fellow citizens will go, because we're in jeopardy. We don't dare to move around, especially the elderly. I can go out during the day, as soon as the night comes I go home,” one of the locals told N1.

“They fight, stab each other, they steal, they do all kinds of things.”

A task force dealing with the migrant crisis in this region decided on Wednesday they would restrict the movement of migrants in urban zones and will allow them to leave the centres only if they are heading towards the border with EU.