Milorad Dodik, Bosnian Serb leader and member of the State tripartite Presidency, said Republika Srpska will not respect the decision on the entry ban for illegal migrants, which Bosnia's northwestern Una-Sana Canton announced the other day, and will keep pushing the migrants out of its territory.
Speaking to N1, Dodik said that Republika Srpska (RS), Bosnia's Serb-dominated entity, will maintain its stance and won't let migrants stay on its territory.
“We're trying to learn where the migrants are, which routes they're taking and we don't want them walk freely throughout the RS or exert pressure on our locals and behave in a violent way,” said Dodik, and added: “Once we gather them at one spot, we're organizing transportation to wherever they want to go.”
The authorities of Bosnia's northwestern Una-Sana Canton decided earlier this week to ban the entrance and transportation of migrants on its territory. The decision came days after a series of protests that emerged in the municipality affected the most by the migrant crisis, Velika Kladusa, whose residents expressed fear over the situation in their communities and often violent behaviour of migrants.
Related news
Most of those migrants were actually coming from the RS territory, which borders this canton.
“We're offering them transportation so that they don't stay in RS. We have an excellent reaction of our population and we will continue doing that,” Dodik said in N1's Newsroom.
“Can you imagine what would have happened if we had set up some barriers? The whole world would react. I can understand the people in USK but we won't stop with our practice to transport them anywhere they want outside Republika Srpska,” stressed Dodik, underlining that there will be no reception centres in that entity.
Una-Sana Canton is one of ten cantons in the Federation (FBiH), Bosnia's other semi-autonomous entity where all the reception centres for illegal migrants are located.
According to the latest cantonal and International Organisation for Migrations estimates, some 7,000 migrants reside in this canton, which is closest to the border with Croatia. Of this number, the authorities say some 3,000 reside in migrant shelters while others roam the streets.
