ZAGREB, May 17, 2018 – Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Prime Minister Denis Zvizdić said on Thursday that the country’s border police would be reinforced to ensure complete control of the borders with Serbia and Montenegro in order to prevent migrants from entering the country illegally.
“We will stop the influx of migrants illegally entering Bosnia and Herzegovina from Serbia and Montenegro,” Zvizdić told the lower house of parliament in Sarajevo.
Responding to questions by MPs about what the government was doing to control the migrant crisis, Zvizdić said that a plan with emergency measures had already been adopted and that it entails deploying additional border police.
There is a shortage of about 500 border police and they will be engaged from other units to prevent migrants from entering the country at locations other than official border crossings.
Zvizdić said that currently three routes were being used by migrants, thirty percent of whom came from Syria. He added that all migrants using official border crossings will be registered and sent to asylum centres. He said that makeshift tent settlements like those that have recently sprung up in Sarajevo, Bihać and Velika Kladuša would not be allowed and that migrants would be sent to asylum centres that will be equipped and financed by the European Union and the UNHCR.
“We need about 20 million euro for that and the international community has announced that it will help us,” Zvizdić said and added that authorities would treat the migrants humanely while at the same time doing everything that is necessary to maintain the country’s security. He added that it is obvious that migrant centres in Serbia and Montenegro were being vacated and that migrants were heading toward Bosnia in smaller or larger groups.
The Council of Ministers will send appropriate notes to the governments in Belgrade and Podgorica and will establish additional cooperation with Croatia to control migrant movement because it is obvious that their destination is the European Union, Zvizdić said.
Almost all of migrants who enter Bosnia and Herzegovina later try to cross the border with Croatia and proceed further to Western Europe.
