Over 300 migrants have arrived in the Bosnian canton of Una-Sana in one weekend alone, many arriving by bus in Bihac and Velika Kladusa, according to local media. The two small cities are struggling financially already.
Several Balkan countries have had to deal with the migrant crisis, but the focus is currently on Bosnia and Herzegovina, specifically to its two western cities where thousands of migrants have arrived. Bosnia has become the new transit route into the EU.
“Currently, Bihac and Kladusa, already financially and materially devastated, are left to themselves to deal with this global problem,” local media reported. A protest staged by outraged Bihac residents over the migrant influx affecting their small city was held recently.
The government, well aware of the problem, has been ineffective and measures to address the problem nonexistent.
In Bihac, surveillance cameras set up at a private house recorded an attempt by a migrant to break in.
Bosnian media reported that the migrant walked up to the front door of the family house, and opened it. The owner, a woman, started screaming with fear. Fortunately, her husband was also present and he chased the intruder out.
The illegal immigrant was “in search of accommodation,” he said, although his motive remains questionable.
Due to the greater influx of migrants the town’s inhabitants feel increasingly insecure, and the fact that the winter is advancing, may mean that the worst scenario has not yet played out. Locals and officials are concerned that homeless migrants will increase attempts to break into homes.
Some 11 000 people – mostly men – from North Africa and poor Asian countries, have arrived in Bosnia so far this year. That compares to just 755 migrant arrivals for the whole of 2017.
At the beginning of the month Bosnian police stopped about 50 migrants from Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan trying to cross from Serbia in a cargo train as authorities step up patrols of the border.
“When you go to Bihac, on the street you will see more migrants than local citizens,” one security expert noted, who warns that a bottleneck is being formed in Bosnia.
Video footage surfaced recently showing hundreds of migrants attempting to cross the Dinaric Alps from Bosnia into Croatia.
“The migrant crisis in Bosnia and Herzegovina is a huge problem,” the security expert told Bosnian media. “The social position of Bosnian citizens is that we can not even live at the required level, let alone receive tens of thousands of migrants from various areas.”
The migrants, most of them from Afghanistan, Iran, Syria, and Pakistan, arrive from Serbia and Greece via Albania and Montenegro, Bosnian authorities told Reuters.
“Migrants are crossing the River Drina [the border between Serbia and Bosnia]. They pay between 250 and 300 euros to smugglers to take them over the Drina,” a police source said. Reuters reporters witnessed the smuggling operation.
