Europe wants Bosnia and Herzegovina to serve as a “waiting room” for migrants and this must stop, the Prime Minister of the Una-Sana Canton, the part of Bosnia most affected by the migrant crisis, told N1 on Thursday, urging state authorities to do a better job guarding Bosnia’s eastern border.
Bosnia has seen a massive and continuous influx of migrants since 2018 after many countries in the region closed their borders.
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The migrants, many of whom enter the country at the eastern border with Serbia, only want to use Bosnia for transit on their path toward EU countries. This is why most of them end up in the USK, which borders Croatia – an EU member.
They are stopped by Croatian police at the border, and those who do manage to cross over are often sent back to Bosnia.
The USK has recently banned entry to migrants but Bosnian presidency member Milorad Dodik, the leader of the ruling party in the country’s Serb-majority region of Republika Srpska (RS), said on Wednesday that he will not respect the decision.
Bosnian Serb leadership has resolutely opposed any migrant camps being set up in the RS and Dodik said RS authorities will send all migrants staying there to the other semi-autonomous entity in the country, the Federation (FBiH).
USK Prime Minister Mustafa Ruznic said this represents the “systematic organizational sending of illegal migrants to this part of Bosnia and Herzegovina.”
“We must guard the border in the east, not in the northwest,” he said. “Migrants cross that border illegally every day, stay here illegally and are returned illegally from the northwest.”
Dodik had previously rejected an initiative to send members of Bosnia’s Armed Forces to guard the eastern border saying he will not allow for any armed force to stand between Serbia and Republika Srpska.
He also commented on the situation in the Miral migrant camp, where five migrants tested positive for the coronavirus but three of them ran away.
“All of this speaks about how these camps function, without any house rules or any measures,” he said, adding, “we insist that the Bira and Miral (migrants camps) are closed and that migrants relocated outside of populated areas.”
Ruznic said the locals who protested due to the influx of migrants in Velika Kladusa the day before had a right to do so.
“The measures we have adopted can already be felt and it is necessary to take several steps – regarding staffing, technical preparations, the establishment of checkpoints, preparation of buses, blocking of camps, the establishment of police containers, etc,” he said.
He also said local authorities will not allow for locals to “take matters into their own hands.”
“But enough already! This is a message to the European community that we can no longer be the bearers of the migrant crisis in the Balkans and Europe, you must help us.”
According to Ruznic, Europe wants Bosnia to be a “waiting room” for migrants.
You must respect the agreement from Brussels that there are no private camps,” he said.
Ruznic repeated earlier statements by Bihac mayor Suhret Fazlic that “Bosnia’s Border Police protects the borders of the Republic of Croatia and Serbia more than those of Bosnia and Herzegovina.”
“In 2018, 24,000 migrants came to the area of the USK, in 2019 it was 49,000, and in this year 30,000 so far. The Border Police should say how many entries they registered at the eastern border,” he said.
