It is believed that more than 2,000 of the 7,000 migrants currently in Bosnia are staying out in the open and the volunteers who provide them with medical treatment daily see them suffering from various injuries, many of which never have the chance to heal up because of the bad living conditions the migrants face, representatives of the Red Cross and the Danish Refugee Council said on Wednesday, marking International Migrants Day.
Jasmin Niksic, from the Red Cross of Bosnia’s Federation (FBiH) entity, said that seven teams of volunteers from the organisation are working with the migrants daily and treat a variety of injuries, including broken bones, inflamed wounds and pain caused by excessive walking.
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“We have provided medical support to more than 2,000 migrants staying outside of migrant camps throughout the past two months. These were mostly first aid interventions, and there were about 1,200 of them. We treated eye and skin infections, broken bones, and most of those wounds do not heal up as they (migrants) are staying in conditions which are not good for wounds to heal,” Niksic said.
The number of migrants in the country frequently changes, especially regarding those staying outside of any camps, as they are not registered, he explained.
“Registered migrants stay at camps and for all of them, food, health services and all other kinds of humanitarian aid is provided,” he said.
Country director of the Danish Refugee Council, Nicola Day, also spoke about the issue said that his organisations has been tasked with providing first aid and all other kinds of help to migrants staying at camps across the country since last year.
“All of the migrant centres have an equipped clinic where doctors from local healthcare institutions work,” Bay said, adding that migrants are sent to local hospitals when the need arises.
He also spoke about the migrants who are not staying in any camps but sleeping out in the open, saying that “they don’t have adequate access to health services.”
“We have teams which provide help to those staying on the streets. We have eight teams which, apart from providing health services, also provide help in other forms, such as food, clothes, sleeping bags (…),” he said.
He explained that the Danish Refugee Council secured the funds needed for covers the costs of medical teams in certain camps and for all medical necessities, as well as for migrants who are sent to hospitals and local health institutions.
The organisation has spent about 1,5 million Euros on that throughout the the past year,” he said.
“The exact number of migrants staying outside of camps can not be determined as they are not registered, but according to UNHCR data, it is believed that there are about 2,200 of them,” he explained.
The number of migrants across the world keeps increasing and, according to the UN, there are more than 232 million people currently living outside of their countries and a large number of them do not have access to the most basic rights.
