Bihac (Bosnien-Herzegowina) – Iranians Ali (24) and Nooh (32) go through cold rain and drizzle in northern Bosnia-Herzegovina. You have just brushed your teeth with fibers from young branches. Now they walk several kilometers through the arid and swampy mountainous landscape to find a place to shower.
The two trudge down a muddy road outside the burned-out Lipa refugee camp, a place that exemplifies Europe’s powerlessness in the face of flight and migration. Here people now live in the middle of the remains of the camp.
In September, the camp for 1,000 single men was set up to relieve the city of Bihac (60,000 inhabitants), 20 kilometers away and directly on the border with Croatia and, therefore, with the European Union. The men must wait here and in other camps for their asylum applications to be processed. The European Union transferred 85.5 million euros to the border state.
Before December 23, people still slept here. The fire was based on a known pattern: In September, residents set fire to the savage Camp Moria on the Greek island of Lesbos.Photo: A Biermann
Then on December 23, Lipa burned to the ground. Some neighbors had set it on fire. The reason: the IOM (International Organization for Migration), funded 90 percent by the EU, pulled the tightrope the day before Christmas. The organization announced that it wanted to close the field because the government of Bosnia and Herzegovina had not promised help to install the field with access to electricity and water and winter proof buildings.
Habib (32) from Bangladesh, here for seven months: “We have big problems, brother. No food, no sleep, no containers “Photo: A Biermann
“We are immigrants, not criminals”
On Saturday afternoon, the 800 men who are still here rebel, some are on hunger strike. They have posters on the journalists’ cameras: “If they don’t like us, we don’t like them either,” he says in English. And: “We want help from the EU”, “We are not animals, but humans”, “We are immigrants, but not criminals”.
A few meters further on you can still see the remains of the large burned tents, the burned bed bases.
The military set up new makeshift tents without heating on Thursday, but many refuse to use them. They want something different. They want to join the European Union and feel abandoned.
Zahur (23) from Pakistan says: “The Bosnian government, the aid organization, they are all corrupt. Croatian President, please open the border! I’ve already tried 20 ‘Games’ and they deported me from Italy. “
“Games”: this is how they describe the attempt to cross the green border into the EU. Around 30,000 have done so since 2018. But many fail at first like Zahur, and some of them are severely mistreated by the Croatian border guards (who deny it) before being exposed again on the Bosnian side.
Zahur (23) hails from Pakistan, like roughly 50 percent of migrants and refugees trying to cross the green border into the EU.Photo: A Biermann
IOM manager Mite Zilkovski (52) told BILD: “Migrants think we have let them down. But that is not the case. We just couldn’t take responsibility anymore, the conditions in the camp were inhumane. “
He says where he thinks the problem lies: “Bosnia-Herzegovina consists of ten cantons. Each canton has its own prime minister, its own minister of justice. A mess of bureaucracy. They cannot agree on absolutely anything. “
143 parties discuss
In fact, the state that emerged from the former Yugoslavia with the Treaty of Dayton in 1995 is almost ungovernable. 143 political parties fight for the favor of the voters. Three nationalist parties are in command, strictly divided into the Muslim-Bosnian, Catholic-Croatian and Orthodox-Serbian ethnic groups.
The region around Bihac is the last point on the land route that carries refugees and migrants through Turkey to Greece, Serbia and finally to Bosnia-Herzegovina. According to the IOM, there are currently 3,500 in the region. 800 of them from families with children. The vast majority are Pakistanis, followed by Bangladeshis, Iranians and Afghans.
Many of the locals were refugees in the course of the Yugoslav civil wars in the 1990s, 92 percent in the canton around Bihac are Muslim due to 400 years of Ottoman occupation, which is why initially there was still support from the population for refugees and migrants, mostly Muslim. But this bonus seems to have been used up.
The hotel receptionist Dzemil (34) lived as a child in a refugee accommodation in Germany for a few years, attended third, fourth and fifth grades, then his father returned home with him out of longing. It says: “There are robberies, the other day a Bosnian was killed by drunken immigrants.”
The director of the camp, Zilkovski, hopes that the ten cantons with their ten different political apparatuses can reach an agreement so that the homeless can be temporarily housed and the Lipa camp can reach a decent level. He says, “We need four months, then it’s ready.”
By the way, there are no deportations from the state to the edge of the EU. Zilkovski: “We pay Pakistanis who voluntarily want to return home the plane ticket and 500 euros for start-up aid.” But since 2018, only 250 have accepted this offer.
Photo: A Biermann
Photo: A Biermann
Photo: A Biermann
Photo: A Biermann
Photo: A Biermann