Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Border Police Director Zoran Galic said that more than 1,000 police officers were missing in order to successfully respond to the migrant crisis, and stressed that border police officers were exposed to dangers every day due to increased migratory pressure which has spread along the entire border of BiH with Serbia and Montenegro.
He stated that since the beginning of this year, members of the Border Police prevented 4,880 people from crossing the border illegally, and pointed out that attempts at illegal border crossings to Croatia by migrants have intensified, which cannot be solved by existing capacities and manpower.
“We are facing increasing tasks. One of the biggest challenges we are struggling with is illegal migration, and 2020 has brought with it a global problem – coronavirus pandemic. We are constantly in short supply with human and material-technical capacities, which additionally complicates the work of police officers who are fighting with superhuman efforts to adequately protect the borders,” Galic said for “Glas Srpske”.
The migrant crisis is becoming more complicated and threatens to escalate in the next 15 days, warns Mirko Sarovic, the president of the Serbian Democratic Party, referring to the current events with migrants in the Republika Srpska entity and Bosnia and Herzegovina, Vijesti.ba news portal reports.
Sarovic says that it is obvious that the current government has no answer to the migrant crisis.
“While the current government in Republika Srpska is only hooked on such a difficult situation, I remind you that while the SDS was in Bosnian Council of Ministers, the largest number of migrants ever recorded did not exceed 4,500,000 and now, we already have close to 10,000, which is an increase of 100%,” emphasizes Sarovic.
He adds that while Dragan Mektic was the Minister of Security, there were no migrants in the Republika Srpska at all, and now we have a drastic situation with migrants and excesses in several cities in the Republika Srpska.
“The situation will be even worse because we need to look at what is happening across the border, in Serbia, where we have riots in Loznica and its surroundings, and we can certainly expect 5,000 new migrants to enter our territory,” the SDS president pointed out.
Earlier, Member of Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina Milorad Dodik said that the Republika Srpska (RS) Police should be given even greater powers in order to be able to defend themselves from migrants, and in that regard it must be ready for rigorous actions.
Dodik said that RS could have had a tragic situation yesterday, that one of the police officers could be killed in Klasnice near Banja Luka during the search for a group of migrants, Vijesti.ba news portal reports.
He reminded that he has been saying for years that migrants are a huge security threat.
“I remember that maybe five or six years ago I said that a significant number of migrants would move into BiH and that then the SDS and (Aleksandra) Pandurevic made jokes about it, “Dodik said.
In any case, Dodik pointed out, the Republika Srpska remains committed to the policy it established earlier, which is that there should be no detention of migrants on its territory.
“All attempts from BiH, first of all, from Sarajevo, and even from the West, to distribute migrants evenly throughout BiH will not work. Neither hospitals will be set up in Republika Srpska, nor will migrants be detained. Republika Srpska is interested in their urgent deportation from BiH, “Dodik said.
