Locals in the village of Bradina, near the southern town of Konjic, have gathered around the local barracks to block the accommodation of migrants from the northwestern burnt-down camp Lipa there, local media reported.
Several dozen locals gathered around the facility owned by BiH’s Armed Forces expecting the busses with the migrants to arrive in the evening hours.
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Eleven buses arrived at camp Lipa in the afternoon on Tuesday to relocate the migrants, who were told in the morning to pack their bags and were given lunch packages.
“We asked the BiH Presidency to let the Service for Foreigner’s Affairs use the facility for four months,” Bosnia’s Security Minister, Selmo Cikotic, said regarding the facility in Bradina.
However, Finance Minister, Vjekoslav Bevanda, pointed out that the Council of Ministers did not adopt such a decision and accused Cikotic of disrespecting procedures.
According to a local association of Serb returnees in the Neretva-Konjic area, accommodating the migrants in Bradina is “unacceptable.”
“We have information that tonight or tomorrow the migrants could be accommodated in the barracks in the village of Bradina. The barracks is 20 meters away from the temple of the Serbian Orthodox Church, and slightly further from the houses of Serb returnees and schools. This is unacceptable, because the safety of returnees will be endangered,” the association said.
The migrants at Lipa spent the past six nights out in the open after the camp was shut down and destroyed by a fire last Wednesday.
The migrants staying at the Lipa camp had no access to electricity, running water or sewage. The camp also did not provide shelter from the extreme weather conditions in the winter.
That is why Bosnia's government, formally the Council of Ministers, approved last week an initiative to officially establish the temporary migrant camp ‘Lipa’, which would consist of adapted shipping containers able to house 1,500 migrants in the Bihac area.
However, according to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), which ran the camp, the works cannot be conducted while the migrants are still there.
The BiH Security Ministry then asked authorities in the northwestern Una-Sana Canton (USK) to reopen the Bira migrant reception centre in the nearby town of Bihac.
Bira was shut down in late September due to pressure from the local population.USK authorities said they will not allow the transfer of the migrants to Bira, while locals in Bihac are patrolling the entrance to the centre saying they will block any attempts to accommodate migrants there.
Heavy snowfall made the situation worse on Saturday, casing fears that people could start dying at Lipa.
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