Adolescent migrants gone without a trace in Bosnia, families desperate

N1

Migrants passing through Bosnia, on their way to western Europe are facing life-threatening situations every day. Many of them die along the way. Those who survived told N1's Adisa Imamovic that police do not want to hear them out, let alone organise a search and rescue party for their loved ones. Migrants say they never receive any information about their loved ones lost while trying to cross Bosnian rivers.

Afghan migrant Nasir Mohammadi with whom N1 spoke Sunday said he was happy because he received the migrant status in Germany. He even learned the language and started working there. Today, he is in Bosnia standing alone in the rain, on a bridge where he last saw his yunger brother Aziz.

He stayed at the Sedra migrant centre, in the north-western Bosnian town of Cazin when his friends told him via social networks, on October 9, that someone had pushed Aziz from that bridge into the Una river. From that moment, Nasir could not reach him on his phone and immediately headed towards the bridge.

“From that moment I can't sleep, can't eat, I keep thinking about it. I had to come here to help look for him but no one's looking for him. Why is nobody looking for him,” Nasir asked.

He told N1 the police only took notes and told him Aziz must be dead. They do not even know if it was an accident or if someone pushed him on purpose. “Nobody is trying,” Nasir said, “and if I leave Bosnia my brother will be completely forgotten. As an older brother, I must know I did everything I could – such is the Afghan culture,” Naris told N1.

“I'm frustrated, depressed, police keep patrolling the area, I keep trying to talk to them but I only look like a migrant, like a refugee to them and they don't want to talk to me at all. They keep telling me to go away. I don't understand how they could act like that, as if we're not human beings, suffering for their loved ones,” Nasir tells N1 through tears.

He begs anyone to help with any piece of information to come forward and inform the Red Cross, the International Organisation for Migrations (IOM) the police or even N1 television.

Nasir is not the only one. Such is the fate of the Iraqi family Alazawi. Late last year, after leaving the Serbian reception centre in Sid, they took a boat to Croatia. But at 3 am an accident happened in the town of Karavukovo. The boat capsized. Two sisters from the Alazawi family drowned in the Danube, and their bodies were immediately found. But 13-year-old Sarmed Ali had disappeared.

“We headed from Serbia in midnight. There were seven of us in the boat. Only three reached the shore. My brother went missing in the river. We went to Croatian police, tried to explain what happened begged them to look for him but they did nothing. We came back to Serbia. The police there only gave us documents saying the accident took place. We asked for some information but no one helped us. No one could tell us if he was dead or alive,” Sarmed Ali's brother told N1.

Father Nadjim's hope was rekindled by an unusual Facebook message. A woman wrote ‘it's painfully sad, thank god the boy survived. Good luck in Zagreb.’ but after that she blocked him and he was unable to contact her again.

Both Nasir Mohammadi and Nedjib Alazawi are aware that their loved ones are probably dead. Una river is cold and merciless and the Danube is huge with powerful currents. Their only fear is they will never find out the truth as to what happened to them.