Dozens of migrant children live without their parents in rough camps, abandoned factories, and houses they find on their way through Bosnia-Herzegovina. RFE/RL’s Balkan Service spoke to Afghan boys in the northwest of the country who hope to find their way to a better life in the European Union.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
‘The game’ of crossing the Croatian-Bosnian border with children often results in degrading treatment and violent pushbacks, refugees say
An Afghan girl pulls her baby sister along in a pram through the mud and snow. Saman is six and baby Darya is 10 months old. They and their family have been pushed back into Bosnia 11 times by the Croatian police, who stripped Darya bare to check if the parents had hidden mobile phones or money in her nappy.
“They searched her as though she were an adult. I could not believe my eyes,” says Darya’s mother, Maryam, 40, limping through the mud and clinging to a stick.
Related: Croatia denies migrant border attacks after new reports of brutal pushbacks
Continue reading…This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.
Bosnia-Herzegovina is under mounting pressure to address the future of thousands of stranded migrants and asylum seekers, with the EU and a top European human rights official joining a chorus of calls demanding that authorities address the unfolding humanitarian crisis.
The dire situation of migrants is “unacceptable and needs to be solved urgently,” Peter Stano, spokesperson for the EU’s foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell, said on January 15.
In northwestern Bosnia, some 900 people have been sleeping without shelter in the improvised camp Lipa, braving snow and subzero temperatures for more than three weeks.
The tent camp was erected last year as temporary accommodation during the coronavirus pandemic and was shut on December 23, 2020. Then a fire that broke out during the evacuation of residents destroyed much of the camp.
Authorities first said they would move the migrants to another location, but after facing resistance from locals they ended up setting up military tents at the old site instead.
This week, around 750 migrants were placed in heated tents at the Lipa camp and showers were installed, although conditions still remain rough.
Hundreds of migrants at the Lipa camp in Bosnia-Herzegovina are stranded amid heavy snowfall after a fire destroyed much of the camp on December 23.
Many of those in the camp are from Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Syria. They are among around 9,000 migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers stuck in Bosnia trying to cross into EU member Croatia in order to reach wealthier countries in the bloc.
“We are urging them repeatedly to set up functioning effective mechanisms to deal with this issue, recalling their responsibilities both stemming from international obligations, and stemming also from their EU aspirations,” Stano told reporters in Brussels.
“There will be consequences if Bosnia-Herzegovina will not be able to meet those demands,” he warned, adding that “it might have an impact also on the European aspirations of the country.”
EU agencies have provided over 88 million euros ($107 million) in assistance to Bosnia over the past three years to address the immediate needs of refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants, and strengthen its migration-management capacity.
Impoverished and ethnically divided Bosnia has struggled with the influx of thousands of people, a situation exacerbated by Hungary closing its border to migrants and Croatia engaging in illegal pushbacks at the border.
The task of dealing with the migrants has been marred by political bickering among Bosnia’s national and local authorities.
Dunja Mijatovic, the Council of Europe commissioner for human rights, told RFE/RL that the crisis has again revealed the absence of coordination and cooperation at different levels of government in Bosnia.
“What we see now in Bosnia-Herzegovina is the dysfunction of the state,” Mijatovic said.
To protect human rights, Bosnia must act like a state and abide by its international commitments instead of allowing its constituent ethnic entities, cantons, or municipalities to determine policy, she said.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
Snow and low temperatures have brought more misery for migrants living in a makeshift camp in a forest above the town of Velika Kladusa in northwestern Bosnia-Herzegovina. They set up the camp because they say they have been denied access to an official temporary shelter for migrants in the area. They say they’re struggling to find food, drinking water, warm clothes, and firewood. Migrants come to this northwest corner of Bosnia seeking passage into nearby Croatia and the European Union.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
Eight students have been found dead from apparent carbon monoxide poisoning in a village in southwestern Bosnia-Herzegovina, authorities said.
The victims were described as high school and university students between the ages of 18 and 20 who were at a New Year’s Eve celebration in a holiday cottage in Tribistovo, about 150 kilometers southwest of Sarajevo.
Police officers responded to a call around 10 a.m. on January 1 and went to the cottage, where they found several people dead, local police spokeswoman Martina Medic told the Associated Press.
Milan Galic, the police commissioner of the West Herzegovina Canton, told local media that police are on the ground and that an investigation is under way.
Tribistovo
The municipality of Posusje, where the village is located, said on Facebook it mourned the “eight young lives lost” and urged the owners of cafes and restaurants to close down to honor the victims.
Bosnian and Croatian media said the victims died from a poisonous gas leak apparently caused by a power generator used for heating as they celebrated New Year’s Eve in a holiday cottage.
Many people in the region are thought to have organized similar private events in order to celebrate the holiday during a lockdown to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
Carbon monoxide gas is odorless and colorless and can build up in confined spaces when generators or gas heaters are used.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
Hundreds of asylum-seekers and migrants left in limbo in Bosnia-Herzegovina braved another freezing night without shelter after protests and resistance from local authorities prevented their transfer to another camp.
Around 900 migrants from Asia, Africa, and the Middle East were supposed to be taken from the fire-ravaged Lipa camp near the border with Croatia to a temporary facility near the central town of Konjic.
However, on December 30 they were forced to disembark from buses they had spent the previous night on after local authorities and residents protested their transfer.
Many spent the night sleeping rough at the site of Lipa camp, which was destroyed in a fire on December 23, the same day it was due to be temporarily closed.
Peter Van der Auweraert, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) coordinator for the Western Balkans, tweeted video of the migrants at Lipa camp with “close to no shelter for the night” after “last minute political negotiations failed to produce a viable outcome.”
Even before the fire, the much-criticized tent camp lacked basic facilities such as running water and heating to house people in winter.
In a joint statement, humanitarian groups called on Bosnian authorities to address the “dire humanitarian conditions and uncertainty” of the stranded migrants.
“Forcing people once again to stay out in the open in these conditions cannot be an acceptable solution. The lack of immediate action by responsible authorities risks grave consequences to human safety and lives,” the groups including the IOM and UN refugee agency said.
Bosnian Minister of Security Selmo Cikotic told RFE/RL’s Balkan Service that the country’s council of ministers would hold an extraordinary session on December 31 to address the crisis and find suitable accommodation for the migrants.
About 10,000 migrants and asylum-seekers from are stuck in Bosnia, hoping to cross into EU member Croatia in order to reach wealthier countries in the bloc.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
The International Committee of the Red Cross has delivered clothes and food to hundreds of refugees and migrants exposed to falling temperatures and heavy snow after their tent camp in Bosnia-Herzegovina was destroyed by a fire.
The stranded migrants at the camp in northwest Bosnia have been without shelter after a fire destroyed much of the camp on December 23, the same day the site was due to be temporarily closed.
Since the fire at the camp, known as Lipa, Bosnian officials have failed to agree where to house the migrants and refugees.
Many of migrants have attempted to shield themselves from the elements with only blankets and sleeping bags.
The Red Cross on December 28 delivered gloves, hats, and socks to the around 800 migrants and refugees at the Lipa camp. They were also given one hot meal.
Hundreds of migrants at the Lipa camp in Bosnia-Herzegovina are stranded amid heavy snowfall after a fire destroyed much of the camp on December 23.
The camp, which had previously come under criticism for inadequate facilities, is located near Bosnia’s border with EU-member Croatia.
About 10,000 migrants from Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa are stuck in Bosnia, hoping to reach the European Union.
The EU has warned Bosnia that migrants face freezing conditions and has urged the country’s officials to take action to accommodate them.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
Thirty-nine-year-old Igor Paspalj didn’t necessarily do it to the same drumbeat as millions of other former Yugoslavs.
But the tattooed, bare-sleeved music teacher and session guitarist has picked and bent his way to global recognition at the top of his craft.
An emigre whose love for his music and gigging took him from the Balkans to Dubai six years ago, Paspalj was named Electric Guitarist Of The Year this month by specialist magazines Guitar World and Guitar Player.
While it’s no Grammy, Paspalj said it’s a “great accolade for me, personally,” because like so many of his counterparts around the world, he was a big fan of those publications, which shaped his musical worldview when he was young.
“I was surprised they even nominated me among the top five and when they declared me the winner I was really happy for the simple reason that I grew up on those magazines,” Paspalj, who was raised in the Bosnian city of Banja Luka, told RFE/RL’s Balkan Service. “I read them as a boy, like all guitarists who grew up with access to them.”
The magazines pick their annual winners in several categories based on a poll of readers, staff, and input from three celebrity musicians.
The judges this year were prog metal icon and Dream Theater guitarist John Petrucci; Nita Strauss, who toured pre-pandemic with Alice Cooper; and John 5, formerly of both David Lee Roth’s and Marilyn Manson’s bands.
Paspalj won with nearly four minutes of a string-bending, alternately soaring and racing rendition of Into The Blue.
Many of the candidates for the award are longtime performers with hard-core followings on the growing market for online musical instruction but are mostly unknown to general audiences.
The award was announced by Guitar World — along with other annual winners in categories for young guitarists, bassists, and even guitar teachers — on December 22.
“With a playing style fueled by a strong cocktail of virtuoso influences – including Eddie Van Halen, Yngwie Malmsteen, Paul Gilbert, Vinnie Moore, Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, and Guthrie Govan — Igor displays exceptional instrumental dominance, as well as an unparalleled compositional ability,” the magazine said.
Paspalj was born in Zagreb but as a young boy moved in 1991 to Prijedor, in what is now a majority ethnic Serb region in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
That was shortly before the breakup of Yugoslavia that sparked deadly wars and a major exodus from the Balkans.
He studied at the Academy of Arts in Banja Luka, the capital of the Republika Srpska entity that along with the Bosniak and Croat federation makes up Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Igor Paspalj
Paspalj went on to get his master’s degree in theory and harmonics and teach at the same academy. He also made a collaborative and a solo album and held music classes all over the world.
Paspalj has been in Dubai since 2014 lecturing on music and working as a session musician, performing at a feverish pace for what he suggested are better-paid gigs than what he can find in many places, including Bosnia.
Paspalj estimated that he has had about 1,500 paid performances in the last five years — “probably the biggest advantage of Dubai” — and said he hoped his new award as the best in the world will bring more work.
Speaking to RFE/RL in Banja Luka, Paspalj said the coronavirus pandemic had made traveling for work “three times as difficult.”
He added that after the award was announced it had “already produced a few offers in the last two days, [and] I hope it brings a lot more engagements in the future.”
Some of those new offers were from the United Kingdom and Canada, he said, in addition to Dubai.
One of the admirers of his winning entry, Sasa Sibincic, proclaimed that “with your masterful cover performances you proved that rock ‘n’ roll is not dead, at least not in this part of the world!”
“I sincerely hope so,” Paspalj said when asked if his success might inspire other Bosnian and Balkan musicians.
“I’d really like many young musicians, if that’s their inspiration, if they’re lucky, from that area, to be there. Soon.”
But he’s not especially well-informed on the Balkan music scene, he says, since he’s mostly been collaborating with bands from places such as the Philippines, Britain, and South Africa.
Now, having spent the past two months back in Banja Luka, he’s reacquainting himself with new bands and old bandmates.
“It’s hard to define where I get my inspiration from,” Paspalj told RFE/RL. “But guitar and music are everything I do professionally — it’s both a hobby and a calling. And I’m glad I have the opportunity to do what I love.”
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
Hundreds of migrants have been exposed to falling temperatures and heavy snow after their tent camp in Bosnia was destroyed by fire earlier this week.
The stranded migrants at the Lipa camp in northwest Bosnia were reportedly without shelter after authorities failed to find new accommodation, and were attempting to shield themselves from the elements with only blankets and sleeping bags.
“Snow has fallen, sub-zero temperatures, no heating, nothing,” the International Organization for Migration’s chief of mission in Bosnia, Peter Van Der Auweraert, wrote in a tweet. “This is not how anyone should live. We need political bravery and action now.”
Food parcels provided by aid groups were one of the few resources available to the some 1,000 migrants.
The onset of cold weather came after fire earlier this week destroyed much of the camp, which lies near Bosnia’s border with EU-member Croatia. The camp in Bosnia, which harbors thousands of migrants hoping to reach Western Europe, had previously come under criticism for inadequate facilities.
The EU has warned Bosnia that migrants face freezing conditions and has urged the country’s politicians to take action to accommodate them.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
Dominant nationalist Bosniak and Croat parties emerged with the most votes in the first local elections in 12 years in Bosnia-Herzegovina’s ethnically divided city of Mostar, according to preliminary results from the December 20 vote.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
Dominant nationalist Bosniak and Croat parties emerged with the most votes in the first local elections in 12 years in Bosnia-Herzegovina’s ethnically divided city of Mostar, according to preliminary results from the December 20 vote.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
Ballots were cast on December 20 in local elections in Mostar, a historic city in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Among early voters was Irma Baralija, a local politician who has won a lawsuit at the European Court of Human Rights against the Bosnian state for failing to hold municipal polls in Mostar. Disputes over the city’s power-sharing structure had been stuck in a stalemate since 2008.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
Bosnia-Herzegovina’s ethnically divided southern city of Mostar is holding its first local election in 12 years on December 20, amid concerns that a surge in coronavirus infections could keep many voters away.
Thirty-five city councilors will be elected under the city’s new election rules. Those city councilors will then vote to determine Mostar’s next mayor.
Polling stations opened at 7 a.m. local time and will close 7 p.m. Preliminary results are expected around midnight.
The number of coronavirus cases and related deaths in Bosnia-Herzegovina have been rising sharply in recent weeks, with health authorities now reporting over 105,000 infections, including more than 3,600 fatalities.
In order to mitigate the risk of infection, voters at polling stations are required to observe strict physical distancing, wear face masks, and wash their hands. Voter temperatures are also being taken and polling stations are regularly disinfected.
Local elections were held on November 15 across the rest of the country, with opposition parties winning contests in the Balkan country’s two largest cities.
The results dealt a blow to long-ruling nationalists amid a wave of dissatisfaction with the handling the coronavirus pandemic.
After 12 years of dysfunctional democracy, Bosnia-Herzegovina’s iconic city of Mostar is preparing for local elections.
The long-delayed vote in Mostar came after Bosnia-Herzegovina’s main Bosniak and Croat parties in June reached a last-minute agreement on a new statute for the city.
The deal was signed by Bakir Izetbegovic and Dragan Covic, the leaders of the Party of Democratic Action (SDA) and the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), respectively, following lengthy negotiations on the issue.
Mostar has not held municipal polls since 2008 because of the authorities’ failure to enforce a 2010 ruling by the Bosnia’s Constitutional Court that said the city’s power-sharing structure was unconstitutional and needed reform.
Ljubo Beslic, of the HDZ, has served as mayor of Mostar without a mandate since his term expired in 2013.
Last October, the European Court of Human Rights condemned Bosnia for its failure to change its election law and enable municipal elections in Mostar.
Mostar is a city of 100,000 people with a divided population, comprising mostly Catholic Bosnian Croats in its west and mainly Muslim Bosniaks in its east.
Bosnia’s Croats and Bosniaks were allied against ethnic Serbs during much of the 1992-95 Bosnian War. But the two communities also fought fierce battles over Mostar and other areas.
The city has reflected a tense situation throughout the country after the Dayton peace accord of 1995, which left Bosnia divided into two autonomous regions — the Bosniak-Croat Federation and the mainly ethnic Serb Republika Srpska — united under a weak central government in Sarajevo.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
The UN’s top agency on migration has further postponed, for at least two days, the closure of a major camp for thousands of migrants in northwestern Bosnia-Herzegovina where international watchdogs have warned that a humanitarian disaster is unfolding.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) told RFE/RL’s Balkan Service on December 19 that a weekend deadline to shut down the Lipa reception facility was moved to December 21 after a request from the relevant Bosnian authorities.
It had already been moved back once.
There are estimated to be up to 10,000 migrants in Bosnia, a quarter of whom sleep rough in the woods, abandoned buildings, or by roadsides.
The IOM, which oversees all migrant facilities in Bosnia, stopped funding the Lipa facility earlier this month because it said authorities had failed to ensure the necessary conditions to make it suitable for winter.
Many migrants in Bosnia have been living rough rather than in reception camps. (file photo)
In October, authorities 75 kilometers away in the town of Bihac closed a migrant center there and moved hundreds of people to the already full Lipa camp.
The Council of Europe’s Human Rights Commissioner Dunja Mijatovic warned in a letter to Bosnian officials on December 11 that a lack of action and coordination between the country’s various governments risks having grave consequences for migrants and asylum seekers left without housing, food, and medical care.
Bosnia’s Council of Ministers — the executive branch of an ethnically divided governing structure imposed to stop an ethnically fueled war 25 years ago — is responsible for a final decision on finding accommodation for around 1,200 migrants at the Lipa camp.
Bosnia has become a transit route for migrants and refugees from Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa since European Union countries shut their borders to new arrivals in 2015, but it has few resources to provide for the inflow.
Many have made their way to Bosnia’s northwest hoping to cross into EU member Croatia to the west.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
Russia announced on December 19 that it is returning a centuries-old Orthodox icon that was given to Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov during a visit this week to the Balkans after revelations that it might have been a protected cultural treasure stolen from Ukraine.
The embarrassing episode began when Milorad Dodik, the Republika Srpska representative of Bosnia-Herzegovina’s tripartite presidency, presented Moscow’s top diplomat with the artwork on December 14.
“The icon will be returned to its donors for further clarification on its history via Interpol,” the Russian Foreign Ministry told journalists five days later.
A shared image of the artifact and its seal had suggested it might be from the Ukrainian city of Luhansk, which has been mostly controlled by Russia-backed separatists since 2014.
Its seal appeared to clearly state that it was Ukrainian “cultural heritage” under protection of authorities in the Odesa region.
The Ukrainian Embassy in Sarajevo quickly sent a letter to the Bosnian Foreign Ministry demanding a “public, immediate, and unambiguous denial by the state leadership” of the reports that suggested it had possessed or transferred an important cultural, historic, and religious artefact originating in Ukraine.
The Bosnian ministry redirected the Ukrainian request to the Bosnian Presidency, which is a frequently awkward, ethnically based power-sharing arrangement stemming from the Dayton Agreement to end the Bosnian War in 1995.
Problematic Visit
Bosnian Serb leader Dodik has repeatedly threatened to try and secure independence for the Serb-dominated Republika Srpska, which along with the Bosniak and Croat federation composes Bosnia.
Lavrov’s visit this week proved problematic in other ways, too.
He cut out planned events after the Bosniak and Croat members of the Bosnian Presidency declined to meet with him over his choice to begin his visit on December 14 at Dodik’s offices outside Sarajeva and because of Lavrov’s reported suggestion that the Dayton terms should remain in place. He also was said to have supported Dodik’s rejection of Bosnia’s NATO aspirations.
The statements were seen by joint presidents Sefik Dzaferovic, a Bosnian Muslim, and Zeljko Komsic, a Croat, as “disrespectful” toward Bosnia.
The Dayton agreement, which turned 25 last week, salvaged Bosnia’s statehood and saved many lives by ending bitter fighting between Bosniaks, Croats, and Serbs.
But its ethnically based divisions and decentralization of power parceled up authority normally vested in a central government.
Republika Srpska’s threats to secede from Bosnia and Serbia’s reluctance to recognize its former province of Kosovo as an independent country are two of the key issues hindering some Balkan countries’ ambitions to join the European Union and, in some cases, NATO, along with rampant corruption and threats to the rule of law.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
1 This is Mostar, a city in southern Bosnia famous for its stone bridge (center right) across the Neretva River.
Mostar was ravaged by conflict during the early 1990s, culminating in a 1993-1994 war that saw Bosnian Croats fighting mainly Muslim Bosniaks for control of the city.
Since the end of the conflict in 1994, Mostar has been divided with Croats mostly living on the west side of the Neretva River (left side of photo) and Bosniaks to the east.
4 A political poster for upcoming elections in Mostar’s city center.
Mostar is due to hold municipal elections on December 20 after more than 12 years of political impasse that left the city without a functioning local council.
5 An elderly couple stop to discuss a political poster in central Mostar.
The breakdown of democracy — largely due to Bosnia’s complex postwar governing system, a ruling from Bosnia’s Constitutional Court, and political impasse between Bosnian-Croat and Bosniak parties — has left Mostar’s mayor holding onto the office as “interim mayor” long after his original mandate expired in 2012.
6 A woman in Mostar’s Bosniak suburbs bakes rolled Burek, a traditional filled pastry.
Irman, a worker in central Mostar, told RFE/RL he was “excited” to be able to vote in local elections for the first time in more than a decade. He says the most pressing issue after improving the economy is to combat nationalism: “We can’t work on the other side of the city. You might get a simple job as a waiter, but for a better job a lot of the bigger companies want to know if you are Muslim or Croat.”
7 One of several murals on the Bosniak side of Mostar to the “Red Army” — hard-core supporters of the mostly Bosniak Velez Mostar soccer team.
8 A stone at the entrance to Mostar’s iconic Old Bridge references the year when the 16th-century Ottoman structure was destroyed by Croatian fighters. The bridge was rebuilt in the 2000s.
![Emina Voloder, a candidate in the upcoming elections, says she decided to enter politics for the first time because of the real-world consequences she witnessed from Mostar’s political stagnation. “I left to study in Sarajevo for six years, and when I came back nothing had changed. There are still the same buildings ruined by the war. Last year the rubbish wasn’t being collected and was just piling up on the street.” A dentist by trade, she says: “Just a few people [in local government] are spending the money that belongs to everyone.”](https://www.radiofree.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/3FF9A709-F443-42AB-8C04-392CB4C8B630_w1024_q10_s.jpg)
“I left to study in Sarajevo for six years, and when I came back nothing had changed. There are still the same buildings ruined by the war. Last year the rubbish wasn’t being collected and was just piling up on the street.” A dentist by trade, she says: “Just a few people [in local government] are spending the money that belongs to everyone.”
10 Two elderly women walk into oncoming traffic around a building damaged by war during the early 1990s.
11 Cars parked in front of a ruined building near a popular cafe in Mostar’s city center.
12 Shuttered stalls next to Mostar’s old bridge in the early afternoon. The graffiti says “Of all my quirks, I most despise indifference.”
Bosnia’s new government will also be tasked with the fixing the enormous damage done to Mostar’s once bustling tourist trade as a result of the COVID pandemic.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
The ethnically based entities that make up Bosnia-Herzegovina are choosing separate paths to vaccinate their populations, a large segment of which doesn’t appear to trust the science anyway.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
The Council of Europe’s Human Rights Commissioner is raising alarm about a humanitarian crisis unfolding in northwestern Bosnia where up to 3,500 migrants may end up sleeping rough in cold weather.
Dunja Mijatovic said in a letter to Bosnian officials on December 11 that a lack of action and coordination between the country’s various governments risks having grave consequences for migrants and asylum seekers left without housing, food, and medical care.
There are up to 10,000 migrants in Bosnia now, a quarter of whom sleep rough in the woods, abandoned buildings, and by roadsides. Ethnically divided Bosnia, one of the poorest countries in Europe, has few resources to provide for them.
Mijatovic also called for fast-track procedures for asylum-seekers, an end to anti-migrant rhetoric, and more comprehensive care to be provided for nearly 500 unaccompanied migrant children in Bosnia, including access to education.
Bosnia has become a transit route for migrants and refugees from Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa since European Union countries shut their borders to new arrivals in 2015. Many have made their way to Bosnia’s northwest hoping to cross into EU member Croatia to the west.
In October, the authorities in the northwestern town of Bihac closed its biggest migrant center and moved hundreds of people to the already full Lipa camp some 75 kilometers away.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM), which oversees all migrant facilities in Bosnia, on December 11 stopped funding the Lipa camp because the authorities have failed to ensure the necessary conditions to make it suitable for winter.
IOM head Peter Van der Auweraert told N1 local television that the government needed to provide an alternative center for some 1,500 people from the camp, otherwise they would have to join another 1,500 people already sleeping rough.
The EU has provided Bosnia with 60 million euros ($70 million) in emergency funding, mostly for migrant centers.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
The Council of Europe’s Human Rights Commissioner is raising alarm about a humanitarian crisis unfolding in northwestern Bosnia where up to 3,500 migrants may end up sleeping rough in cold weather.
Dunja Mijatovic said in a letter to Bosnian officials on December 11 that a lack of action and coordination between the country’s various governments risks having grave consequences for migrants and asylum seekers left without housing, food, and medical care.
There are up to 10,000 migrants in Bosnia now, a quarter of whom sleep rough in the woods, abandoned buildings, and by roadsides. Ethnically divided Bosnia, one of the poorest countries in Europe, has few resources to provide for them.
Mijatovic also called for fast-track procedures for asylum-seekers, an end to anti-migrant rhetoric, and more comprehensive care to be provided for nearly 500 unaccompanied migrant children in Bosnia, including access to education.
Bosnia has become a transit route for migrants and refugees from Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa since European Union countries shut their borders to new arrivals in 2015. Many have made their way to Bosnia’s northwest hoping to cross into EU member Croatia to the west.
In October, the authorities in the northwestern town of Bihac closed its biggest migrant center and moved hundreds of people to the already full Lipa camp some 75 kilometers away.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM), which oversees all migrant facilities in Bosnia, on December 11 stopped funding the Lipa camp because the authorities have failed to ensure the necessary conditions to make it suitable for winter.
IOM head Peter Van der Auweraert told N1 local television that the government needed to provide an alternative center for some 1,500 people from the camp, otherwise they would have to join another 1,500 people already sleeping rough.
The EU has provided Bosnia with 60 million euros ($70 million) in emergency funding, mostly for migrant centers.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
WASHINGTON — Former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright told a congressional committee on December 8 that corruption is “crippling” the Western Balkans and urged Washington to devote more attention to the strategically important region to counter Russian and Chinese influence.
Albright, who served under President Bill Clinton from 1997 to 2001, also said the United States needs to work closer with Europe on resolving the region’s lingering political and economic problems.
“We must attack the rampant corruption that is crippling political institutions and undermining the rule of law across the region,” Albright told the House Foreign Affairs Committee during a hearing dedicated to Balkan policy recommendations for the incoming Biden administration.
“In every country, leaders seem to regard political office as a source of patronage to stay in power. Addressing the so-called state capture and rooting out these influences must be a top priority,” she said.
The United States has been seeking to integrate the Balkans into Western organizations such as the European Union and NATO in order to bring peace and prosperity to a region that has suffered from ethnic wars. Serbia’s reluctance to recognize its former province of Kosovo as an independent country and Republika Srpska’s threats to secede from Bosnia-Herzegovina are the two key issues hindering that goal.
Albright said the United States has pulled back from the region following its deep involvement in stopping the ethnic wars of the 1990s. The United States led two NATO military campaigns in the Balkans that decade, including the 1999 bombing of military targets in present-day Serbia to halt the cleansing of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.
Albright was one of three experts to speak at the hearing, which also addressed the growing influence of Russia and China in the region, the autocratic tendencies of Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, and the need for U.S. leadership to solve outstanding problems.
“This may sound too simplistic, [but] we have to pay attention,” Albright said when asked about how to counter Russian and Chinese influence. “We have not paid the kind of attention that is necessary to this area, feeling kind of ‘oh well, we did everything that we could.’”
Daniel Serwer, a professor at Johns Hopkins University and a former State Department special envoy to Bosnia, also called for more U.S. involvement in the region in cooperation with Europe to solve the most critical issues.
Serwer said that Europe has been unable to solve Balkan regional problems by itself in part because some EU states refuse to recognize Kosovo. Europe has been leading the effort to solve the political impasse between Serbia and Kosovo for a decade.
“The essential precondition for solving the remaining Balkan problems is American recommitment to the region in tandem with European allies,” Serwer said. The EU “demonstrated it cannot do the job on its own,” he said.
The experts said Biden should push Vucic to recognize Kosovo, end military cooperation with Russia, and improve the state of democracy inside the country if Serbia wants to join Western institutions. Vucic, who vowed to lead Serbia toward European Union membership, has been accused of curbing media freedoms and intimidating critics.
“The Biden administration will need to toughen up on Belgrade together with Europe,” Serwer said.
The experts warned Congress against pulling NATO forces from Kosovo, saying it would be a sign of a lack of commitment to the region at a time when rival powers are getting more involved.
NATO has a force of 3,500 in Kosovo, including slightly less than 700 U.S. military personnel.
“If it were ended at the moment, it would be something that would continue to make the people in the region think well, the rest of the world doesn’t care,” Albright said of the troop deployment.
Janusz Bugajski, a Balkan expert and senior fellow at the Jamestown Foundation, a Washington-based think-tank, told the committee that the United States needs to “pay more attention” to building up a security force in Kosovo.
“In that way, Kosovo will be in NATO rather than NATO being in Kosovo,” he said.
Lawmakers in Kosovo in December 2018 passed legislation to build a full-fledged army, a move that has inflamed tensions with Serbia but that would take years to accomplish.
Turning to Bosnia, the experts warned that the 1995 Dayton agreement, which created a political settlement based on ethnic power sharing following years of war, is no longer viable and only serves to perpetuate corruption.
“The United States and the European Union must focus their efforts in Bosnia on the abuse of government and state-owned enterprises, taking away the levers of power that keep the current system in place,” Albright said.
Serwer said the United States should pressure the EU to sanction those pushing for the breakup of Bosnia and to move EU peacekeeping forces to the country’s northeast to block secession by Respublika Srpska, the country’s ethnic Serb region.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
Seven former Bosnian Serb police officers and army fighters were arrested on December 8 on suspicion of committing atrocities against non-Serbs during the 1992-95 Bosnian War.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.