There is still no solution in sight for accommodating the migrants who spent the past five nights out in the open at the burnt-down Lipa tent camp and the Red Cross in Bosnia’s northwestern Una-Sana Canton (USK) distributed warm meals and winter gloves, hats and socks to some 700 of them on Monday.
It is currently about 4 degrees Celsius at the Lipa camp, near the town of Bihac, and throughout the night the temperatures dropped below zero.
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The Lipa camp was shut down on Wednesday because the migrants staying there had no access to electricity, running water or sewage. It 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.
As migrants were leaving Lipa on Wednesday, a fire broke out in the camp and destroyed most of the tents.
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 and now there is fear that people could start dying at Lipa.
The migrants told N1 that they would like to go to either Bira or towards Sarajevo.
The situation is uncertain and it remains unknown how long the migrants will be forced to stay without adequate shelter from the extreme winter weather conditions.
According to the Head of IOM in Bosnia, Peter Van der Auweraert, the situation at Lipa has turned into a “humanitarian catastrophe.”
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