The recent death of 12 migrants who tried to cross from Serbia to Bosnia and Herzegovina opened new and old questions about migrant routes. It is also the biggest migrant accident in our region. How to prevent them, whether and who takes care of the safety of migrants and do they avoid the responsibility of the institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina?
Migrants want to use the warmer days for what they call Game on the Balkan route. That “game” brings violence, pushbacks, but also tragedies such as the last one on the Drina river when 12 of them lost their lives in a boat capsize. There are many such cases, says volunteer Asim Karabegović, showing in Bihać the resting places of those whose dreams were stopped at the door of Europe.
“After arranging the cemeteries in Zvornik and Bijeljina, we started with this one in Bihać. Some have first and last names, some don’t, we will put the N.N. of the persons there. There is documentation of which of them died, in case the family or the state expresses a wish to they can find it. We tried to keep those people from getting lost,” said Asim Karabegović, a volunteer of the SOS Balkanroute organization.
More and more frequent accidents involving migrants have raised the question of whether anyone is taking care of their safety. More than 300 of them have lost their lives on the Balkan route in the last three years. Despite everything, they are not giving up on a better life.
“I tried to enter Croatia three times. Once they were good to me, but later not at all. I heard that they took some people’s money, cell phone… and all that to get them to give up,” says Muhamed, a migrant from Syria.
Although Bihać, which bore the brunt of the crisis, will say that the situation is under control today, it is far from the fact that there are no problems.
“The last incident took place on August 31, related to migrants. Colleagues from Sarajevo received a report from a migrant who reported that his relative from Afghanistan was taken out of the camp and that the kidnappers, also foreign nationals, were demanding a ransom of 10,000 euros for his release. About they informed SIPA and the MUP of the USK about this, after which it was determined that that person was in the camp,” says Adnan Beganović, spokesman for the Police Department of the MUP of the USK.
Several organized, armed people smugglers operate in the Bihać area and in the rest of the country, and intensive work is being done to neutralize them.
“As for the migrant problem, they are here, they are not left. It is obvious that they are becoming more and more violent and it is obvious that we will have that security challenge. The security agencies are ready to face it and it is nothing new, it is not is happening in the region,” said Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Security Minister Nenad Nešić.
For migrants, Bosnia and Herzegovina is only a passing country on the way to the European Union or, as they say, to a better life. They don’t want to stay here. This is also shown by the number in the camps. There are currently 280 of them in Lipa, and 180 in camp Borići, BHRT writes.
