ZAGREB, October 23, 2018 – The border police of Bosnia and Herzegovina stopped a large group of migrants at the Izačić border crossing while they were trying to reach Croatia on late Monday evening.
The group consisting of about 90 men, women and children, was going on foot towards the border crossing after they had left a migrant accommodation centre in the former hotel “Sedra” near the northwestern town of Cazin. A cordon of 200 police officers barred them from departing from Bosnia to Croatia’s territory.
The law enforcement authorities then started negotiations with those irregular migrants in a bid to persuade them to return to Cazin. However, a majority of them decided to stay there overnight in the open.
Earlier on Monday, a group of 200 to 250 migrants tried to enter Croatia at the Maljevac border crossing from Bosnia, but they were prevented from doing so by Bosnian police, and Croatia’s police did not to take any action, the police in Karlovac said.
The Karlovac police said that they were notified by Bosnian police about noon about a larger group of migrants who had gathered near the Maljevac border crossing and that they were being monitored by Bosnia’s police.
There was no contact between the migrants and Croatia’s police and Croatian forces did not take any action, the Karlovac police said, adding that traffic on the Maljevac-Velika Kladuse road was flowing normally.
Bosnian media reported about the incident of migrants attempting to cross the border to Croatia on foot, adding that this was the third such incident and that the police managed to prevent them each time.
Local residents in Bihac staged a new protest in the town on Monday evening to show their dissatisfaction with the escalation of the migrant crisis in that part of Bosnia and Herzegovina. A thousand protestors insisted that migrants be relocated from the centre of Bihac to accommodation facilities that should be set up outside the town.
