Crisis management group in the southern Herzegovina-Neretva Canton (HNK) has fully restricted the movement of its residents and banned them from leaving their places of residence due to the rapid growth of COVID-19 patients on its territory, putting the whole canton - in a quarantine.

The decision was passed on Thursday in an urgent phone session. Only those with a special permit will be allowed to leave their places of residence.

Municipal and city authorities were advised to be “rigorous” when issuing those permits.

The canton's authorities were among the first to introduce this measure. Only Republika Srpska (RS), one of two Bosnia's semi-autonomous entities, imposed a similar measure, limiting the movement of its citizens on weekends. Another half of the country, Federation (FBiH) entity, has seen the first such restriction in its south, where HNK is located.

The southern canton was severely affected by the coronavirus outbreak with a total of 164 confirmed cases and six fatalities by April 9. The many were placed into quarantine. After the initial outbreak in the town of Konjic, Citluk has become another hotspot – currently the most affected local community in that canton.

“The situation in Citluk is alarming, we have had a large number of contact with those infected,” head of cantonal healthcare institute, Nermin Avdic, warned in the first days of April.

And one of the infected contacts was a nun, who recently returned from Italy. Except her, five other nuns in Miletina monastery tested positive for the virus. The authorities quarantined the whole monastery and warned all those who might have had contact with the nuns to self-isolate.

A nearby children's shelter was also quarantined as well as the priests at the Medjugorje parish office.

Known as one of the most popular sites of Catholic pilgrimage, Medjugorje has not seen any visitors for a while. Italians, who were amongst the most numerous guests there, started cancelling their trips in February after the coronavirus outbreak in their country.

“There is nobody indeed, you can see it yourself. Empty streets, it's so sad, it was always full of guests, this is so sad,” a local told N1 at the beginning of March.

According to the State Ministry of Civil Affairs, by April 9 Bosnia saw the total of 857 confirmed cases, 475 in Federation and 365 in Republika Srpska, The death toll stands at 35.