IOM Closes Migrant Camp After Bosnia Ignores Warnings

The International Organization for Migration, IOM, has acted on warnings that it would close a migrant camp, saying Bosnian authorities had ignored its repeated appeals to help supply basic services.

The Lipa camp in northwest Bosnia near the border with EU member Croatia was due to close on Friday, but the IOM was asked to stay on in the camp for another day so that the authorities could find a solution for about 1,300 migrants staying at the camp.

Lipa was established in March in an emergency response to the COVID-19 pandemic, to get all migrants and refugees off the streets. The authorities promised to provide electricity, water and road access.

Despite repeated warnings from the IOM, none of this has been done. The camp is still reachable only by a dirt road, electricity comes from a generator and water is brought in on trucks.

The IOM said it would distribute breakfast and sleeping bags to remaining migrants on Saturday, but no one knows what will happen to them and where they will go after that.

The only choices for now are the surrounding forests and abandoned buildings in the area. Some 1,500 migrants already camp out there, as there is no place for them in the camps.

"On Thursday night, all the NGOs working in Lipa met regarding the evacuation plan. The atmosphere was very sad, dramatic and tragic," Silvia Maraone, from Ipsia, an NGO that helps migrants, told BIRN.

"We don't know what will happen tomorrow during the evacuation, or whether the migrants will be cooperative," she added.

She said that some of the migrants told her that they would try to go to the capital, Sarajevo, although all the camps around the city are already full.

Some told her that they would return to Serbia over the...