(6 Dec 2019) Bosnian officials said Friday they will close a makeshift camp in northwestern Bosnia where hundreds of migrants remain stranded despite snow and freezing weather. Bosnia's security minister Dragan Mektic said the Vucjak camp on the border with Croatia will be closed early next week and the migrants will be relocated to other camps outside the region.
Mektic added that migrants will have no say in the process or the place of relocation.
International aid organizations have repeatedly warned that the camp was unfit for migrants because it is located on a former landfill and close to a minefield from the 1992-95 war.
Poor conditions in the camp, which has no running water and toilets, have worsened further after snow fell this week.
A top European human rights official also demanded on Friday the immediate closure of the camp.
Dunja Mijatovic, European Council High Commissioner for Human Rights, said the conditions in the camp were horrific and inhumane and that migrants were treated violently.
Migrants come into Bosnia from neighboring Serbia or Montenegro.
Most of them have flocked to the northwestern corner of the Balkan country which borders the European Union member state Croatia.
Bosnian authorities have struggled to accommodate thousands of people fleeing war and poverty from the Middle East, Africa and Asia.
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