The authorities in the northwestern Bosnian town of Bihac on Monday informed the local utility company that the town would no longer be paying for water deliveries or waste collection at the Vucjak migrant camp and Red Cross volunteers would have to decide for themselves if they wish to continue working there, local media reported.

The mayor of Bihac on Monday confirmed for the Dnevni Avaz daily that a decision adopted previously would be implemented as of Monday according to which local authorities would stop financing the camp for irregular migrants as no one else participated in running the camp.

“Since Vucjak was established, the town of Bihac has provided all sorts of services via its public companies including the delivery of water. We delivered 20,000 litres of water a day. On Thursday I sent a letter to both companies that the city would no longer pay for that,” Mayor Suhret Fazlic said.

He assumes that not even Red Cross volunteers who had been distributing food to migrants, would stay at the camp any longer, which was erected in the immediate vicinity of the border with Croatia, as it would have to be shut down.

The UN office in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the EU Delegation to that country and the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights Dunja Mijatovic recently called for the Vucjak camp to be shut down.

There is no running water at the camp nor electricity and migrants are staying in plastic tents in the vicinity of a mine filed left over from the 1990s war.

The EU has demanded that authorities in Bosnia and Herzegovina urgently find a new location for migrants to be accommodated in more humane conditions, adding that if an adequate location was found the European Commission would be willing to finance such a camp.

The Sarajevo-based Dnevni Avaz recalled that the EU had to date sent €44 million in aid to help the country in its efforts to manage the migrant crisis however, it is not clear where that money has ended up.