Shelter Provided to Migrants Sleeping Rough in Bosnian Capital
Migrants who have been sleeping on the streets of Sarajevo for the past weeks have been given accommodation at a temporary reception centre located in a military barracks near the city.
The International Organization for Migration, IOM, the Danish Refugee Council, DRC, the Red Cross of the Federation entity in Bosnia, together with migrants who volunteered, on Friday set up heated isolation tents for migrants in the Blazuj army barracks, furnished with 1,000 beds, mattresses and blankets.
The idea is to provide temporary accommodation for migrants and refugees who have previously been sleeping rough on the streets of Sarajevo.
According to the IOM, the migrants will first go through a medical check-up pending registration after which they will have access to shelter, food, medical assistance and other humanitarian needs.
In mid-March, the Sarajevo Canton, which includes the Bosnian capital and various nearby towns and villages, imposed restrictions on the movement of migrants, and ordered them into temporary reception centres as a part of measures to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
However, since the existing temporary reception centres did not have the capacity to host all the migrants located in and around the Sarajevo Canton, more capacity was needed.
A similar temporary reception centre is being built not far from the village of Lipa, in western Bosnia, in the Una-Sana Canton.
However, Bosnian Serbs have called on the authorities not to build a tent camp near the village, where post-war Serb returnees live, because they claim the mainly Muslim migrants could be a threat to them.
There are about 7,500 registered migrants in Bosnia and Herzegovina. For at least 3,000 of them, there are no places in temporary reception centres set up by the authorities.
►https://balkaninsight.com/2020/03/28/shelter-provided-to-migrants-sleeping-rough-in-bosnian-capital
#Covid-19 #Migrants #Migrations #Balkans #Bosnie-Herzégovine #Lipa #camp #Unasanacanton #Fédérationcroatomusulmane