prijava
SARAJEVO, June 24 (FENA) - The Ministry of Security of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with the support of the Austrian organization Hilfswerk International, organized a diplomatic dialogue yesterday on the possibility of international support for the development of procedures in BiH to combat illegal migration in BiH and the EU.
BiH expects international assistance in strengthening institutions and managing migration, as capacity and budgetary resources are insufficient to adequately manage this security and humanitarian challenge.
After the presentation of the work of domestic institutions in migration management, Minister of Security of BiH Selmo Cikotić said at the press conference that the meeting was attended by an extremely large number of representatives of embassies, international organizations and institutions from BiH, municipalities and the two cantons that bear the biggest burden of the migrant crisis.
“Migration management has been raised to an extremely higher level compared to a year ago. The number of migrants has significantly decreased. Increasingly high-quality coordination of all participants in this process is underway. The Lipa camp is being developed, which will be a kind of model for a temporary reception center for migrants, not only in BiH but in the wider region, with the support of the EU, the European Commission and a large number of international organizations,” said Cikotić.
Head of the EU Delegation in BiH, Johann Sattler, stated that the third winter is coming, when another humanitarian crisis could occur.
“That is the reason why we talked about this topic in continuity, to compare where we are and how we stand. Some progress has certainly been made, we need to continue working in two aspects, the first is capacity building and the second is an even distribution of migration burdens, in order to avoid the situation of another humanitarian crisis in the winter. The EU is strongly committed to the issue of migration in the Western Balkans and BiH. I am convinced that we will stay and continue to provide support, but we also want to see a stronger engagement of the local authorities. In that context, the Council of Ministers of BiH should allocate appropriate capacities to the Ministry of Security of BiH, which will enable further management of migration, which is one of the requirements of the EU,” said Sattler.
The Austrian organization Hilfswerk International is responsible for organizing this event, but also in providing technical support to the Ministry of Security in migration management.
Hilfswerk Managing Director Stefan Fritz said that this organization in BiH is implementing a project supported by the Federal Ministry of the Interior of the Republic of Austria with the support of the largest donor - the European Commission.
The goal of this project is the prevention of illegal migration to the territory of BiH and the Western Balkans and further to the EU. First of all, we work through capacity building in the countries of the region, and the approach is based solely on needs. We are identifying the appropriate needs and based on that we determine how to proceed and what the steps are. Together with the institutions, we are working towards capacity building,” said Fritz.
(FENA) A. B.
