Hundreds of migrants trapped in an abandoned camp in Bosnia and Herzegovina were spending New Year’s Eve in freezing temperatures, according to humanitarian groups, as the country’s authorities struggled to balance their security with the growing hostility of local populations.
About 700 people slept on Wednesday in abandoned open-air containers in and around the old Lipa camp in northwestern Bosnia. They lived in miserable conditions, without electricity, water, winter clothes and tents, humanitarian organizations said.
Lipa’s camp was abandoned last week after being deemed unsafe by aid workers. When the migrants left, a fire destroyed most of the tents left behind.
Migrants, mainly from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh, were due to be relocated to a former military location in the neighboring town of Bihac this week, but the mayor of Bihac refused to accommodate them. The buses that came to transport the migrants to Bihac allowed some to take shelter in the vehicles on Tuesday night, but left Lipa empty the next day.
The uncertain fate of migrants was the most recent example of Bosnia’s struggle to provide basic assistance to those wishing to reach the European Union. Migrants have faced growing animosity from residents on the Bosnian side of the border and abuses by Croatian police on the other.
On Thursday, the Bosnian government agreed to relocate migrants from Lipa to Bihac, 15 miles north “very quickly”, he said, but did not provide an exact date.
“We emphasize that this is urgent and temporary care for migrants during the winter months, until the Lipa reception center is built and equipped for a longer stay,” said the Interior Ministry in a statement, adding that the Lipa camp would be rebuilt, with water and electricity and be ready to permanently house migrants by April.
The ministry asked local authorities to facilitate the transfer and help accommodate migrants in the Bihac camp. “Obstructing and rejecting the proposed solutions for the accommodation of migrants who are now open, can only worsen the humanitarian situation, cause additional suffering and even human deaths,” he added.
But Peter Van der Auweraert, head of the mission for the International Organization for Migration in Bosnia, said he was not optimistic that the decision could be implemented soon due to local opposition.
“Dozens of people are protesting with the mayors of two cities who say they don’t want to accommodate migrants and, as a result, the state, whose mandate is to relocate these migrants, gives in to pressure and decides not to move,” he said. Van der Auweraert said.
“But these migrants and refugees are in dire need of humanitarian assistance to save lives,” he added.
As countries like Turkey, Greece and Hungary have made it harder for migrants and refugees to access the wealthiest nations in the European Union, Bosnia has in recent years become a central crossing point for those entering the continent. The Balkan nation is not part of the European Union, but it shares more than two thirds of its borders with Croatia, a member state.
While 750 migrants were registered passing through Bosnia in 2017, there were more than 29,000 in 2019. That number dropped to 17,000 in 2020, according to Mr. Van der Auweraert, who said that despite the smaller number, the failure to accommodate them made the crisis worse.
Since Bosnia became a transit route in early 2018, thousands of migrants, mostly men, have stayed in Bihac and other nearby cities surrounded by hills and icy mountains, with the European Union just a few kilometers away.
Human rights organizations and residents of these remote areas have reported several cases of abuse by the Croatian police. Dozens of migrants, residents, doctors and aid workers interviewed this year by The New York Times said migrants were being deported without due process.
Increasingly, anti-immigrant attitudes in places like Bihac have also worsened. “I don’t want them here, and they don’t want to be here either,” Suhret Fazlic, Mayor of Bihac, told The New York Times in 2018.
Residents of his small town, close to the border with Croatia, met on Wednesday outside the barracks of the former military site, promising to block any migrants from entering.
“Three years ago, we carried the burden of the migration crisis and offered them accommodation,” Fazlic told local media, adding that he would refuse to comply with the order to relocate them.
The camp in Lipa was established in April as a temporary response to the Covid-19 pandemic. But Van der Auweraert of the International Organization for Migration said that his organization, as well as the Red Cross, Doctors of the World and the Danish Refugee Council, made it clear to Bosnian authorities that the camp, mostly made up of tents, was not it was a viable long-term solution.
The camp was never “prepared for winter,” the organizations said in a statement this week, a process that typically includes adding thermal mats and insulation to shelters and distributing blankets, stoves and fuel.
Up to 1,600 people lived in the countryside, without electricity or water, on slopes exposed to strong winds, and the organizations that run the facility dismounted last week after being considered unsafe. A prayer tent collapsed earlier this month, and Van der Auweraert said residents were in danger from staying in the camp.
“It was safer for them to go somewhere in abandoned buildings in the area than to be in large tents where the risks of landslides and fire increased,” he added.
Nearly 1,000 of the migrants went to nearby Bihac, where they stayed in makeshift camps and abandoned buildings, but hundreds remained around Lipa. Their hope is to be moved to a former military site in Bihac, a former housing complex for migrants that local authorities closed this fall.
Previous plans to move migrants to another city were also abandoned after the mayor and local politicians refused to cooperate.
On Thursday, images shared on social media by local news outlets showed men trying to warm up around a fire, under the remains of a tent in Lipa. Some could be seen walking on the frozen ground in sandals and without socks.
Van der Auweraert said aid groups on Thursday will provide migrants stranded in Lipa with winter sleeping bags, warm clothing and food, while the Bosnian civil protection agency will distribute tents.
But leaving migrants in tents in icy conditions was not sustainable, he said.
“If you do not open the camp in Bihac, you will keep people in abandoned buildings, without control,” said Van der Auweraert. “I don’t see how this is better for the safety of the locals, instead of having a centralized camp that provides the most basic services for those who need them.”