Snow, wind and extremely difficult conditions in the recently burned migrant camp Lipa in the north-west of Bosnia are making the migrants' lives impossible, N1's Adisa Imamovic reports Saturday adding that they no longer have drinking water or electricity and that they only receive food once a day.
The humanitarian crisis is unravelling before the eyes of national and international officials. The video below shows the conditions near the camp, on the path toward it.
Migrants say the International Organisation for Migrations (IOM) ran away:
“They left us here to die of cold and starvation. If we’re here, they have to be here as well,” they told N1’s Imamovic.
"There is no food. When later media come there will be dead people," a #migrant told N1 in Lipa camp, NW #Bosnia, Saturday. pic.twitter.com/BgWsI4z9TU
— N1english (@N1info) December 26, 2020
Hundreds of migrants are staying in what used to be a migrant camp Lipa, destroyed recently by flames.
It has been snowing for the entire night and strong winds make it extremely cold to be here.
Migrants say they cannot believe no one offered an alternative solution and that local as well as international institutions allowed them to welcome the winter in such conditions.
With no solution in sight, the Mayor of Bihac, Una-Sana Canton’s administrative centre where the camp is located, said he and the local authorities would agree to migrants being housed to existing migrant centres in the Canton, but not for the reopening of the Bira camp which was closed recently because Bihac residents complained of burglaries and safety concerns ever since the camp was opened.
State and local authorities announced they could meet Monday to help the migrants from the former camp Lipa.