Anno IX - Numero 10
Non è sufficiente parlare di pace. Bisogna crederci.
Eleanor Roosevelt

giovedì 19 luglio 2018

The situation in Bosnia:  from bad to worse

Thousands of people left in inhumane living conditions in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Over 200 illegal push-backs from Bosnia to Serbia in one week. “Almost emergency” situation in Greece with close to 65.000 asylum seekers registered at the moment. Appeals from Austria and Bosnia

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One more time we focus on the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina where thousands of people are stranded at the moment, receiving limited help from the local authorities, as well as from the big INGOs.

Out of over 8.000 people on the move who are currently in Bosnia, less than 500 lives in a state-provided accommodation that can be described as decent. Those who are lucky, are living in hostels and hotels, sometimes paid by the local NGOs or Bosnian citizens, and sometimes by people on the move themselves. Others are forced to stay out in the open, to live in the train station — like in Sarajevo — in parks, abandoned buildings, under the bridges…

In Bihać, since yesterday around 800 people are crowded in a building that is not safe, has no windows, roof, doors or anything. Many are sleeping in the surrounding forest area.

On Monday, state authorities, with no prior agreement with any of the existing organizations, evicted squat where about 200 people lived. No alternative accommodation is provided for them, but many of them also moved to the Đački dom and forest around. The UNHCR provided plastic tents, and the Red Cross put mattresses on the ground where people are supposed to sleep now creating the place for about 40 people altogether.

The local media are reporting that there is a possibility that families, about 40, will be moved on Tuesday to one old hotel in the city of Bihać that will be knocked down in the next four to six months.

The others will be simply left out in the open.

The situation is even more precarious in Velika Kladuša, the second city close to the border with Croatia, where about 1000 people are staying, and about 400 of them are living in a field area.

The tents they use are made by volunteers, while help is mostly coming from the locals and volunteers in the area. Over the last couple of days, the weather in this area of Bosnia is very bad, with constant rain. On Monday, a storm left the catastrophic situation in this camp.

Almost everything was ruined, including clothes and blankets people had in tents. Most of the tents disappeared in the storm, and they needed to be fixed.

This is is the wetland and there are hardly basic living conditions even where there is no rain.

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