ZAGREB, July 18, 2018 – Stormy weather at the beginning of this week completely ruined a makeshift migrant camp near Velika Kladuša in Bosnia and Herzegovina with illegal migrants continuing to arrive every day, local media reported on Wednesday.
This has occurred just when international organisations have warned authorities in the country to be prepared for the fact that migrants will be there for the winter and the authorities are supposed to secure accommodation for much worse climate conditions than now.
A tent settlement housing about 350 migrants was literally swept away in rainy weather that hit Velika Kladuša late Monday and early Tuesday morning. “Rain and storms have almost destroyed the entire camp. We have to do something to normalise the situation because people are in mud, in the fields, water has flooded almost half the camp,” Husein Kličić of the local Red Cross organisation said as carried by the Klix portal. He warned in particular that about forty children aged between one and six years are living in these poor conditions.
Several non-governmental organisations called on authorities and international organisations stationed in Bosnia and Herzegovina to urgently react referring to the current situation as a “disaster.”
“Thousands of people were caught in the storm out in the open in this part of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Warnings have been heard from various sides regarding the government’s inaction and refusing to fulfil its legal obligations and provide appropriate accommodation and care for these people. As usual, our authorities are doing what they know best – passing the buck,” the NGO’s said in a press release.
Various levels of government levels have been negotiating for weeks and months about who will deal with this and accommodate migrants.
At another site near Velika Kladuša, a tent settlement has been erected that was donated by Austria, however, for reasons unknown, it is still not in use. The only concrete agreement is that about 300 women and children be placed in a hotel in Cazin while town authorities in Bihać organised accommodation for migrants of their own accord and transferred them from a ruined building to a building that is in a somewhat better condition.
The head of the Bosnia and Herzegovina office of the IOM (International Organisation for Migration) Peter Van Der Auweraert warned that the migrant crisis wouldn’t go away that easily and that more effort was needed by those whose duty it is to deal with this.
I could say that crisis is an appropriate description of the situation in Bihać and Velika Kladuša. Local authorities there are truly in crisis. Velika Kladuša is a small town. There are 1,500 migrants in the streets in Bihać even though the number of migrants is certainly higher – 2,000 to 2,500, Auweraert said in an interview with the Faktor portal.
Since the start of the year, about 8,300 illegal migrants have entered Bosnia and Herzegovina and each day a new 400 to 500 hundred are arriving. They believe that they will easily cross Bosnia and Herzegovina. This has in reality become quite difficult because the Croatian police have tightened border controls, Auweraet added.
IOM estimates that there is currently 4,000 to 4,500 migrants “stuck” in Bosnia and Herzegovina and it is likely that about 3,000 to 3,500 will still be there during the winter and it is necessary to create conditions to accommodate them, similarly to the situation that occurred in Serbia.
