Bosnia Moves Migrants, Refugees to ‘Unsuitable’ Forest Camp

Hundreds of migrants and refugees trying to reach Western Europe via the Balkans are now being housed in an improvised tent camp in a Bosnian forest, with no toilet, no running water and no electricity, eight kilometres from the nearest town.

The camp opened last month in the Vucjak area of northwestern Bosnia despite protests from the United Nations and International Office of Migration, IOM, over the conditions.

It was set up to alleviate some of the pressure on nearby Bihac, which has become a hub for migrants and refugees from the Middle East, Asia and Africa trying to cross the nearby border into European Union member Croatia and beyond.

„Welcome to the jungle,“ two Afghan men said at the entrance to the camp, which houses some 600 people in fifty tents.

Croatian police regularly prevent migrants from crossing the country’s border, sometimes using violence, rights groups say. That has created a bottleneck in Bosnia.

Though the numbers are not on the scale of 2015, when the migrant crisis was at its height, Bosnia, and particularly its northwestern Una-Sana Canton, has struggled to cope.

In the forest, temperatures have recently hit 35 degrees Celsius; the camp receives water in tanks and food is delivered twice per day by Red Cross volunteers – breakfast, lunch and a cold food package the residents save for dinner.

Given the heat and the camp’s location close to a garbage dump, infection is a risk. Some residents suffer from scabies, a highly contagious skin infestation. Others cite threats from the forest.

“This is a forest, not for [a] human,” a Pakistani man, who declined to give his name, told BIRN. “Every day I kill one snake.”

Abdulah, another Pakistani, said he had twice been turned back from the border.

“Bosnia and Croatia, I’m asking you kindly, please sit together and make a solution as soon as possible,” he told BIRN.

Bosnia registered a total of some 25,000 migrants and refugees on its territory last year. Some 3,500 stayed, while the rest moved on, trying to reach Western Europe.

Una-Sana Canton has repeatedly asked the central government for more help. BIRN reported from Bihac a year ago, when around 1,000 migrants and refugees, including women and children, were living in a squalid dormitory and surrounding tents on the outskirts of the town.

Better accomodation has since been found for the most vulnerable, but there are still issues with accomodation for single men. Many slept on the streets.

Amid protests by local residents, authorities across Una-Sana Canton ruled in May 2018 that migrants would no longer be allowed to reside in public spaces or abandoned buildings.

In mid-June, police began relocating hundreds of migrants from Bihac to Vucjak. Some 20 officers are assigned to control the new camp, intercepting those who try to return to Bihac and sending them back.

Those now living in the camp say they feel isolated, particularly as the limited electricity supply from mobile generators means they have little time to recharge their phones.

“The police is not allowing [us] to go to market,” said Abdulah. „People go, hiding from the police. They go to the city, [to the] market, but not openly.“

When the relocation began, the UN office in Bosnia said the new site was completely unsuitable, noting its proximity to areas still littered with unexploded landmines left over from Bosnia’s 1992-95 war.

“There is also a high fire and explosion hazard due to the possible presence of methane gas underground, as the site was a former landfill,” it said on June 16. „In addition, there are no sanitary facilities available on the site and no access to running water or electricity.“

The IOM, which manages five migrant camps in the canton, told BIRN it was „constantly working to find an alternative that would be safe for relocating migrants in all aspects that meet minimum standards for migrant and refugee accommodation.”

IOM said migrant numbers were rising and the current capacity offered by local authorities was not enough to house everyone.

The mayor of Bihac, Suhret Fazlic, insisted Vucjak was not „a permanent solution“.

“We have no other way out and we are looking for another location,” he told Klix.ba website. “We’re also not happy with the conditions they live under, but we do our best with what we have.”

An Afghan man pointed to injuries which he said Croatian police had inflicted. Photo: BIRN.

The day BIRN visited the camp, a Red Cross staff member said around 150 migrants had left to try and cross the green border between Bosnia and Croatia, a gauntlet known as ‘the game’.

Human rights groups have documented physical abuse of migrants at the hands of Croatian police, though Zagreb denies being heavyhanded.

In Vucjak, an Afghan man told BIRN he had been pushed back from the border three days earlier and pointed to injuries to his head, hand and leg which he said Croatian police had inflicted. Another Afghan man showed this reporter his broken phone, blaming Croatian police.

“[Croatian] police is taking our phones, money, taking our bags, taking our sleeping bags and putting in the fire,” a third Afghan, Habib Safi, told BIRN. Safi said he had been travelling for four years.

No Name Kitchen, an NGO assisting migrants and refugees, says that between May 2017 and December 2018, there were 141 ‘pushbacks’ from Croatia to Bosnia, of which 84 per cent involved violence.

A March report by the international rights watchdog Amnesty International accused the European Union of being complicit in violent pushbacks of migrants and refugees from Croatia, which is on the EU’s external border.

“European leaders can no longer wash their hands of responsibility for the continued collective expulsions and violent pushbacks along the Balkan route,” Amnesty wrote.

Safi, however, said they would not give up.

“We are here, we cannot go back, we have crossed five countries,” he told BIRN.

“We have to go. If you beat us, we don’t care. Maybe I’m injured, but I have to go.”