Bosnia's Serb-dominated region, Republika Srpska, will tighten the coronavirus measures during the upcoming Orthodox Easter and Labour Day holidays, the Serb member of Bosnia's tripartite Presidency Milorad Dodik said on Monday.

“We extended the current measures until April 27 due to Easter and a possible virus spread. We are doing this only to reduce the contact among people and that we don't have annulled everything we have done so far,” Dodik told reporters in Banja Luka, Republika Srpska's administrative centre, the coronavirus hotspot with over 200 cases of 1,030 that Bosnia confirmed by Monday.

Unlike the other half of the country, Bosniak-Croat Federation (FBiH) entity, Republika Srpska has already introduced the movement restrictions on weekends, not allowing its residents for the past two weekends to leave their places of residence from Saturday noon until Sunday 6 pm.

Due to the upcoming Easter and Labour Day holidays, Republika Srpska authorities will most likely extend the weekend restriction hours from Friday morning until Monday morning, with a brief break of several hours on Saturday to enable the citizens to do a grocery shopping.

Dodik asked the citizens to be disciplined and respect the measures during the Easter and Labour Day holidays.

“If we are disciplined enough on these two dates and if we don't have (the virus) expansion, we can then think about and reduce these measures immediately after St. George's Day (May 6),” he stressed, asking for more patience.