The 94-page report, “‘Like We Were Just Animals’: Pushbacks of People Seeking Protection from Croatia to Bosnia and Herzegovina,” finds that Croatian authorities engage in pushbacks, including of unaccompanied children and families with young children. The practice is ongoing despite official denials, purported monitoring efforts, and repeated – and unfulfilled – commitments to respect the right to seek asylum and other human rights norms. Border police frequently steal or destroy phones, money, identity documents, and other personal property, and often subject children and adults to humiliating and degrading treatment, sometimes in ways that are explicitly racist.
Bosnian Foreigners Affairs' Service in cooperation with the police of the northwestern Una-Sana Canton have launched an operation Thursday morning to relocate the remaining group of migrants from the 'Miral' camp near the town of Velika Kladusa.
Bosnia and Herzegovina: Population Movement Emergency Appeal n° MDRBA011, Operations Update n° 7 - Bosnia and Herzegovina reliefweb.int - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from reliefweb.int Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
24 January 2021: A migrant living at the abandoned metal factory in Bihać bundles himself up against the cold outside his ‘room’.
The snow that fell in Bosnia and Herzegovina at this year’s Holocaust remembrance day on 27 January covered traces of another humanitarian crisis happening on European soil. The European Union (EU) is turning back thousands of migrants, mainly from Asia and North Africa, who are stuck at the border between Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia.
According to the Bosnian government, around 60 000 migrants have moved through the country since January 2018. The wall built in late 2015 along the Hungarian border has increased migratory flow to Europe through Bosnia and Herzegovina. Currently, there are around 8 000 migrants in limbo in the Balkan country. That figure has not undergone major changes over the past year as Covid-19 restrictions and the increased intransigence of the Croatian police has made travelling more complicated.
Along the Balkan route, refugees and volunteers face growing hostility
A policeman stands by as a group of migrants wait to be relocated during heavy snowfall at the temporary Lipa Camp in north-west Bosnia, near the border with Croatia, on 26 December 2020. Three days earlier, much of the camp was destroyed in a fire, leaving over 1,000 people stranded outdoors.
(AP/Kemal Softić
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A policeman stands by as a group of migrants wait to be relocated during heavy snowfall at the temporary Lipa Camp in north-west Bosnia, near the border with Croatia, on 26 December 2020. Three days earlier, much of the camp was destroyed in a fire, leaving over 1,000 people stranded outdoors.