NEW YORK, November 14, 2019—Thousands of people seeking safety in Europe are living in dangerously cold and harsh conditions in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said today, warning that people may die without adequate shelter and other basic services.
Many are attempting to travel north to other destinations in Europe but are enduring harsh living conditions as border restrictions tighten in the region.
In recent months, Bosnian authorities have started to restrict people's movements between the country's cantons. Four official centers for migrants exist, but services are inadequate, and tensions are high, leading most people to stay elsewhere. Of the more than 6,100 migrants and asylum seekers around the border cities of Bihac and Velika Kladusa in Una Sana Canton, only 2,800 people are in the official centers, while the rest sleep in abandoned buildings or makeshift shelters in near-freezing temperatures. Most are from Pakistan, Iran, Syria, or Afghanistan.
In July, local authorities decided to move some of the migrants and refugees staying outside the official centers to Vucjak camp—a temporary site about five miles from Bihac. This tented camp does not meet minimum living standards, is not adequate for cold weather, and is surrounded by land mines. Medical services are provided in the camp by the Bosnian Red Cross and some volunteers, but access to medical care is limited. Despite the conditions, local police continue to forcibly transfer people from informal settlements to this camp. On November 13, the local authorities announced that Vucjak camp will stay open throughout the winter and will be used for new arrivals.
"The situation is very hard here—I never had to sleep in a tent before," said one young man from Pakistan, traveling with his 16-year-old brother. "At night the cold passes through the tent, and when it rains the water gets inside the tent. The food is really bad, the toilets are so dirty that we cannot use them, and the water for showers is freezing cold."
