Migrants do not stay here, they come to the coast, “borrow” boats there, and cross from Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) to Croatia. There are not enough policemen on our side and real border control is almost non-existent.
This is how the mayor of Novi Grad, Miroslav Drljaca, describes everyday life in this city in northwestern BiH, where the Una River crosses from one state to another in several places.
Currently, 1.800 border guards are responsible for guarding more than 1.500 kilometers of the border with Croatia, Serbia, and Montenegro. One border guard guards more than a kilometer of the border with BiH.
If nothing significant changes, in three years they will patrol an additional kilometer.
The BiH Border Police confirmed that they currently lack 610 police officers, out of the 2.426 expected according to the systematization adopted in 2005.
Since then, ten new border crossings have been opened, and the Western Balkans and BiH have become one of the main migration routes from Eurasia to Western Europe. Only in the first six months of 2023, about 16.000 migrants were registered in BiH and the entry of about 6.000 migrants was prevented.
Can the BiH Border Police fill its ranks?
BiH does not have the capacity for mass training of hundreds of border guards.
The Agency for Education and Professional Training of Personnel has 250 beds in Mostar for the same number of cadets, but police officers from the State Investigation and Protection Agency (SIPA) and the Directorate for the Coordination of Police Bodies are also trained there.
The Agency confirmed that 98 cadets are currently being trained to become police officers and 22 to become junior inspectors of the BiH Border Police.
If they were to train a hundred border guards every year, it would take six years to fill the current number of missing 610 police officers, and during that time at least that many more would have to retire, Slobodna Evropa reports.
E.Dz.
