BiH building container camp for 1,500 migrants

SARAJEVO, April 21 (Xinhua) -- Construction on the container camp Lipa for 1,500 migrants will be completed within the next three months, the Minister of Security of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) said on Wednesday.

A delegation led by Minister Selmo Cikotic visited on Wednesday the temporary camp Lipa and the construction site near Bihac in the northwest border of BiH.

The camp was destroyed by fire on Dec. 23, 2020 as it was set to be closed by authorities for reconstruction. After the fire, a temporary tent camp has been erected on the site by the BiH Armed Forces.

Laura Lungarotti, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) Chief of Mission in BiH, and Ulrike Hartmann, the Ambassador of Austria to BiH, were among the members of the delegation.

"The construction is underway and it's encouraging that the condition in the camp will be drastically improved," Cikotic said.

More than 900 migrants are currently settled in the temporary tent camp Lipa, but that number changes on a daily basis, according to Mirsad Buzar, deputy director of the Service for Foreigners' Affairs of BiH.

"Some leave the camp and now migrants arrive. The movement of people intensified in the springtime as weather became more favorable," Buzar told national public broadcaster BHRT on Wednesday.

Partner organizations such as the IOM, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), and the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) are helping BiH authorities secure food, medical care, and other necessities for migrants in the tent camp.

"Now we are building a container housing settlement for 1,500 people, divided in three sections. One for single men, one for families, and one for unaccompanied minors," said Buzar.

He added that 4,682 migrants are currently settled in several reception centers across the country. The number is considerably fewer than the more than 6,000 migrants reported several months ago.

Relevant institutions estimate that thousands more migrants are staying in abandoned houses and makeshift accommodations across the country, raising the total number of migrants in BiH to over 8,000.

According to the IOM in BiH, the Austrian government is providing financial support to the BiH authorities for the construction of the Lipa migrant center, as well as for capacity building in migration management. Since 2015, tens of thousands of refugees and migrants have been trying to make their way to the countries of the European Union via the Balkan route, one of the main migratory paths into Europe.