Should migrants remain in camp Vucjak, a suburban settlement near Bosnia's North-Western town of Bihac, the local Red Cross organisation will stop assisting the local authorities and leave their tasks to some other organisation, because the area has no basic conditions to sustain them over the autumn and winter, Red Cross representative Selma Midzica told Anadolu Agency.
“If it comes to this, then it would be a defeat for us all. I will really leave this place. We are exhausted, and nobody sees it except the media and journalists. We work hard here to create some kind of decent living conditions. The Una-Sana Canton's Health Ministry representatives, the Director of the Cantonal Hospital and representatives of the Bihac Health Center and the Public Health Institute who have examined the situation and we are in constant contact them,” Midzic said.
After they were relocated from urban areas of the North-Western Bosnian town Bihac, migrants were accommodated several kilometres away, in Vucjak settlement, near the border with Croatia.
Some 700 of them were moved because they were a strain and security threat for the population when they started robbing the locals and fighting in-between themselves in the centre of Bihac.
The North-Western Una-Sana Canton has been especially interesting to migrants, entering the country from the direction of Serbia and Montenegro, because it is closest to the border with the EU.
Last year, 25,000 migrants entered the country and competent authorities estimate that there are around 9,000 of them in the country right now.
Migrants started flocking to Bosnia after Bulgaria and Hungary imposed strict border controls and stopped migrants from entering their country, effectively blocking the migrants’ “Balkan route.”
Those residing in Vucjak are faced with temperatures over 30 degrees Celsius and forced to sleep in tents. International humanitarian organisations have still not offered any help and the EU was against this location because of its immediate proximity to the EU border.
Despite all these facts, a shop was installed in the centre where migrants can buy basic necessities. They mostly buy energy drinks, water and juices, as well as credit for their pre-paid phones. Bosnia's state-owned telecommunication company BH Telecom also said they would install a free WIFI connection in the camp.
“Based on their needs, we'll probably expand our capacities. Our biggest problem right now is communication because they speak very bad English, but other than that – we have no problems. We're open some 4-5 hours every day, despite the heat,” the shop owner Muamer Delic said.
The migrant themselves are disappointed and say they feel like animals in this camp.
“I left Pakistan a year and three months ago. I spent three months in Turkey and a year in Greece. I've been in Bosnia for three months. I left my family back home and came here to find work in Europe. Pakistan has many problems, low salaries and security problems. I want to enjoy life and secure quality living conditions for my family,” Ali Chima (19) said, adding that despite everything, migrants only want to go to countries like Italy, Germany or France.
Of the 9,000 migrants currently residing in the country, authorities say only about 8 percent are refugees, the rest being economic migrants.
