International Organization for Migration (IOM), UNHCR, Danish Refugee Council (DRC), MdM and Save the Children expressed their deepest concern about the precarious conditions migrants and asylum-seekers are currently exposed at the Lipa migrant camp in Una-Sana Canton, calling upon BiH authorities to act quickly to ensure the immediate safety and protection of those at risk.
“Humanitarian agencies have been alerting on the risks migrants and asylum seekers would be exposed to unless adequate shelter solutions were identified, underlining the unsustainability of the Lipa Emergency Tent Camp during winter. Despite our collective best efforts and readiness to immediately support any viable alternative, no solution, temporarily or otherwise, was proposed by the authorities until now,” the five international organisations said in their joint statement.
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They warned that following the recent heavy snowfalls and temperatures below freezing, up to 500 people currently stranded at the location are at immediate safety, health and protection risk.
“The structures still existing at the location are unsafe and at risk of collapsing, as snowfalls continue. With no heating at the site, frostbite, hypothermia and other severe health problems are already being reported by those stranded at the location. Despite the efforts of humanitarian actors to provide emergency assistance, their lives are at immediate risk,” they said.
“An alternative solution has to be found immediately. It is up to the authorities to provide minimum protection for those stranded outside reception centres in deteriorating winter conditions. This includes those stranded at the Lipa location but also the estimated 2,000 others, forced to try and survive in abandoned buildings and make-shift camps. Failing to act with the utmost urgency will put lives at risk.”
The signatories to the statement reiterated their readiness to support the authorities’ efforts in finding safe and protective alternative solutions and to urgently organize the provision of assistance.
