The situation in the “Lipa” migrant camp near Bihac is becoming increasingly difficult. The situation is further aggravated by the snow that has been falling since yesterday.
Hundreds of migrants spend nights and days in the open air. Today, the humanitarian organization SOS Bihac will distribute meals and sleeping bags, as well as clothes and shoes for hundreds of migrants staying in this camp.
Migrants say they are dissatisfied with the conditions at Camp Lipa. “We have no food or water. We all sit on the ground. Once, the Red Cross only came and gave us food. I don’t know what we’re going to do. We are in big trouble because of the snow. It’s very cold. We don’t have food and warm clothes. ”
“We just want to go where we can live better. It doesn’t matter which camp. They say go back to Lipa and we will solve your problems, but they don’t. We’ve only had one meal a day since all this happened. ”
The solution to the situation in the Lipa camp is still not in sight. The International Organization for Migration withdrew from this camp. The only ones who take care of migrants are the Red Cross of the city of Bihać, ie Una-Sana Canton, and the humanitarian organization SOS Bihać. The security situation is calm, strong police forces are present in the Lipa camp 24 hours a day and keep everything under control.
The mayor of Bihac, Suhret Fazlic, stated that there are about 1,500 migrants in the forests, which is why the population is in fear. He said that the former factory “Bira” in Bihac will never be a place to accommodate migrants.
“That is our condition for resolving the migrant crisis, once they deceived us, they will not do it again,” Fazlic told BHT1.
According to him, the City of Bihac reached an agreement with the International Organization for Migration / IOM / in April, at the beginning of the coronavirus epidemic, to temporarily place the migrants in the migrant camp “Lipa”, where they were supposed to stay until September.
“At the beginning of the epidemic, the goal was to withdraw migrants from the streets, and Bihac participated in the financing with half a million BAM, so he gave his land,” said Fazlic.
He pointed out that there was enough time until December to improve the conditions in “Lipa”, estimating that the IOM may have deliberately caused the current situation. Fazlic stated that the information that there was no water in “Lipa” was incorrect, and that the city managed to conduct water in accordance with its capacities, but that it was not enough.
He emphasized that they said from Brussels that the migrants would stay in “Lipa” until September, and added that they had only now tried to improve the situation.
“We gave everything, and now they say to receive them in the urban part of the city, that is out of the question,” Fazlic concluded. The tent camp for migrants “Lipa” near Bihac was destroyed in a fire two days ago, after which the migrants accommodated in it remained under the open sky.
At the beginning of the week, the Council of Ministers made a decision on the establishment of a temporary reception center for the accommodation of migrants “Lipa”, in the area of Bihac, which will be a prefabricated container-type facility with a capacity of 1,500 people.
Until the end of the construction works in “Lipa”, it is planned that the migrants will be accommodated in “Bira”, which is opposed by the authorities of the Una-Sana Canton and the citizens of Bihac.
