News

Bosnians Trade Blame Over Migrants’ Convoy

May 24, 201807:37
A Bosnian canton and the state government are heatedly arguing over the recent case of a blocked convoy of migrants – with each side accusing the other of criminal actions.
Denis Zvizdic, chair of Bosnia’s Council of Ministers Photo: Anadolu

After police in the Hercegovina-Neretva Canton, one of ten cantons in Bosnia’s Federation entity, intercepted a convoy of migrants last Friday, accusations have continued to fly between the canton and the state government over whether the police had a right to stop it or not.

Ljubo Beslic, Mayor of Mostar, the largest town in the canton, told N1 on Wednesday that security issues in the cantons fall under the jurisdiction of these units.

Responding to charges that the canton had committed a “coup”, the mayor said Bosnian state Security Minister Dragan Mektic “was the one who committed a coup”.

Beslic is a member of Croatian Democratic Union, HDZ, the main Bosnian Croat party, which in a press release on Tuesday said the state government had not approved the convoy, nor had the local authorities in Mostar.

“The decision to send a convoy of buses carrying migrants towards the Herzegovina-Neretva Canton was not approved by the Council of Ministers, and occurred without prior agreement with the local institutions in Mostar,” the press release noted.

However, Denis Zvizdic, chair of Bosnia’s Council of Ministers, in another press release, insisted the state had the right to take such decisions.

“Bosnia’s constitution says state-level institutions are the only decision makers when it comes to issues regarding migration, visas and asylum,” the press release from Zvizdic’s office issued on Wednesday said.

Security Minister Mektic described the move by the Cantonal Interior Ministry as a virtual coup on Friday. 

“For a police commissioner to prevent state institutions from implementing their constitutional duties is a sort of a serious coup, in my opinion. This is a blow to the constitutional order of the state,” Mektic told N1. 

Ilija Lasic, the police commissioner who gave the order to officers to stop the convoy with some 300 migrants was summoned to explain his actions to the State Police on Friday evening but details have not been revealed as yet.

Davor Bunoza, Lasic’s attorney, did not answer BIRN’s queries to confirm reports of a possible lawsuit against Minister Mektic for defamation, as some media had announced.

Migrants are becoming a growing issue in Bosnia. Groups of migrants and refugees have set up an improvised camp in a park near City Hall in Sarajevo, as Bosnia’s authorities try to find a solution not just for them but for an increasing number of people using the country as a transit route to Western Europe.

Hundreds of thousands of migrants passed through the so-called “Balkan route” in 2015, trying to reach Western Europe, but Bosnia was not part of that route, which was effectively shut down in March 2016. 

Migrants then started searching for new routes from Turkey and Greece to Western Europe via Montenegro, Albania, Serbia, and recently Bosnia.

Read more:

Bosnians Trade Accusations Over Blocked Migrants’ Convoy

 Bosnia Deploys Police to Border to Stop Migrants

 Bosnian Serbs Want Border Closed to Migrants