prijava
SARAJEVO, October 15 (FENA) - Mayor of Bihać Šuhret Fazlić announced a complete suspension of assistance to migrants at the Vučijak reception center, which will take effect as of next Monday.
Fazlić said at a press conference held today in Sarajevo that the City of Bihać has been under pressure for two years, caused by the constant influx of migrants, without the financial assistance of the competent institutions, which is why he decided to stop spending the funds of the of the city to assist migrants.
“The City of Bihać, together with the Red Cross and international organizations, has been dealing with the migrant crisis for two years on its own. I came to Sarajevo to show that the migrant crisis, which exists only in Bihać, is not ceasing, but it is becoming worse. When it comes to money intended for the migrant crisis, no one mentions Bihać, and so far we have spent 100,000 KM on Vučijak alone. As of Monday, this practice ends and we will let the crisis escalate and thus try to force the competent institutions to react. If that fails, we will organize an ‘illegal camp’ of Krajina inhabitants in front of the parliamentary assembly,” said Fazlić.
He recalled that the recommendations and requests that Brussels or Ambassador Wigemark gave regarding migrants in BiH have not been fulfilled, and that all the migrant accommodation solutions proposed by the City of Bihać were declared insufficient and inadequate.
“I demand that a plan be made for Bihać, for someone to take a leadership position and responsibility. We suggested the location of Vučijak, invested the money, and then that location was not good enough. We then proposed a new location to build a migrant center 20 kilometers away from Bihać, for which they said that migrants would not have the necessary services. It turns out we need to keep these people downtown. The winter is coming when these poor people will walk through streets of Bihać with blankets and again we will be the only ones who will have to help them,” said Fazlić.
He reiterated that Croatia continues to return migrants to BiH, while about 150 migrants arrive from Sarajevo daily by train. For their needs, 20,000 liters of water are transported daily to Vučijak, and the Red Cross, funded by the City of Bihać, provides the meals.
“I have no obligation, neither legal nor moral, to continue spending our citizens' money for these purposes. I don't need anyone's consent. The BiH Council of Ministers did not provide a single KM for the migrant crisis, nor has the FBiH Government or other competent institutions. Is it not wrong that 140 million KM is planned to tackle this crisis without anyone even thinking of helping the City of Bihać. We have been showing for the past two years that we are humane and that we want to help, but it is time for someone to help us,” said the mayor.
He stressed that not much has been said about the migrant crisis during the summer, and Security Minister Dragan Mektić has minimized the problem.
“It turns out that the crisis is almost non-existent. Mektić said today that there are 4,000 migrants present in BiH across the country, and here I am claiming that there are currently more than 6,000 in Bihać. All the centers are full, the city is full of migrants,” Fazlić stressed.
(FENA) S. R.
