ZAGREB, August 21, 2018 – Bosnia and Herzegovina Security Minister Dragan Mektić reiterated on Tuesday that most of some 11,000 illegal migrants who had entered the country since the start of the year had already left the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina and continued their journey towards Croatia and other EU countries.
Addressing a news conference in Banja Luka, Mektić said that currently there were only around 2,000 illegal migrants in Bosnia and Herzegovina. “Around 700 are in Bihać, as many are staying in Velika Kladuša, there are around 200 at the Sedra Hotel (near Cazin), a smaller number of migrants are elsewhere in the country and that’s it,” Mektić said.
According to these figures, at least 9,000 migrants have managed to continue their journey to Croatia even though figures from the Croatia’s Ministry of the Interior suggest that that number is much smaller.
Asked to comment on these discrepancies, Mektić said that only two answers were possible – either Croatian police did not identify all those migrants after they crossed the border into Croatia or they simply did not register them.
Mektić was categorical that the thousands of migrants were definitely not in Bosnia and Herzegovina, saying that if that were so, they would be seen somewhere. He added that it was clear to everyone that illegal migrants were not interested in staying in Bosnia and Herzegovina and that the country’s police agencies had precise data on the number of illegal migrants who had entered Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Croatian Minister of the Interior Davor Božinović on Monday dismissed statements from Bosnia and Herzegovina that the 8,000 migrants who were lacking in Bosnia and Herzegovina were in Croatia, saying that the number of illegal crossings of the border, including the border with Serbia, this year amounted to 3,200.
We have registered a 26% increase in the number of illegal border crossings, of which a large portion refers to the border with Serbia, Božinović said, adding that Croatian police were doing their job in line with the law and Schengen rules.
Asked to comment on the fact that residents of Drežnica, in Ogulin, Karlovac County, frequently spotted migrants, Božinović said that police stopped migrants on the border and monitored and took possible smugglers in for questioning. He added that this year the number of people arrested for smuggling migrants had increased by more than 70%.
