The migrant camp Lipa in northwestern BiH was supposed to close on Friday but the decision was postponed until Saturday, the manager of the camp from the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), Natasa Omerovic, confirmed to N1, adding that there is no plan in place for accommodating the 1,255 migrants currently staying there.
The migrant camp will close because the Council of Ministers failed to reach an agreement on declaring it a permanent institution.
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“The IOM is implementing all of its regular activities today,” Omerovic said, adding that no migrants have left the camp and that the process of closing it will take place between 11 am and 2 pm on Saturday. She said there is no plan in place for the migrants and nobody knows where they will end up.
This means that, as of Saturday, the migrants in the camp will be on their own and will likely join the about 1,500 migrants already spending the winter in the Una-Sana Canton (USK).
Some of the migrants told N1’s Andjelka Markovic that they wish to go to the Bira migrant camp.
Omerovic noted that the Security Minister, Selmo Cikotic, proposed Bira as a potential location for accommodating the migrants temporarily until the Lipa camp is made functional in terms of operating in winter conditions.
She said that accommodating the migrants at the Bira camp is what everyone involved advocates for but that this does not mean it will be realised.
The Security Ministry said that the closure of the Lipa camp could create a serious humanitarian, security and political crisis in the USK, where most of the migrants are.
Since the beginning of 2018, tens of thousands of migrants arrived in BiH on their way to the EU but Croatian police keep pushing them back when they try to cross the border authorities in Bosnia’ semi-autonomous Republika Srpska (RS) entity do not allow them to stay on their territory.
