ZAGREB, July 4, 2019 – Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović has written to a group of Croat residents of the northwestern Bosnia and Herzegovina town of Bihać, telling them that Croatia has been closely following the migrant crisis in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Sarajevo-based Dnevni Avaz daily said on Thursday.
Bosnia and Herzegovina Foreign Minister Igor Crnadak confirmed to the daily that the Croatian president replied through his ministry to a letter by four Bihać residents who asked her in a letter to intervene over a decision by town authorities to set up a new migrant centre in Vučjak, only ten kilometres from the border with Croatia.
The four Bihać residents believe this move jeopardises the few remaining Croats living in villages close to Vučjak.
In her reply, Grabar-Kitarović said that she and Croatian authorities were following developments in the area of Bihać and that she had forwarded the letter to the Croatian ministries of foreign and internal affairs for further action.
The Croatian president did not specify what the two ministries would do with regard to the situation in the neighbouring country.
The largest number of migrants who illegally enter Bosnia and Herzegovina and attempt to reach the Western Europe via Croatia have been staying in the northwestern Una-Sana Canton and the towns of Bihać and Velika Kladuša, close to the border with Croatia.
As two migrant centres opened in downtown Bihać have become overcrowded, two months ago the town authorities decided to set up a new migrant centre at Vučjak, seven kilometres from the town centre.
A large number of migrants are staying there in a tent settlement in poor conditions and the EU has said that it will not finance it because the settlement does not meet even the most basic conditions for normal functioning considering that it is located in rugged terrain and is close to areas believed to be infested with mines and even lacks running water.
The head of the Delegation of the EU in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Lars-Gunnar Wigemark, has suggested that the country should consider the model used by Serbian authorities which have distributed migrants evenly in 18 centres across the country.
Representatives of Bosnia and Herzegovina will discuss this dispute with EU officials in Brussels on July 17.
The EU has said that this year it will set aside slightly less than 15 million euros for Bosnia and Herzegovina to deal with the migrant crisis.
More news about the migrant crisis can be found in the Politics section.
