A shortage of border guards may be hampering Bosnia’s ability to stop migrants from illegally entering the country, officials say.
The rulebook on its internal organisation says the Border Police of Bosnia and Herzegovina should have 2,426 officers, but currently has only 2,038, which is 388 less, Franka Vican, a spokeswoman for the state border police, told BIRN.
The most problematic area is the eastern border with Serbia and Montenegro, where most illegal migrants cross over.
“There is evident pressure … from the direction of Serbia and Montenegro to the Bosnian border, which is still a very complex situation that cannot be solved by existing material and technical capacities and human resources,” Vican said.
According to Vican, another 1,000 police are needed to adequately guard those 600 kilometres of the border.
Besides a lack of manpower, the Border Police lack specialist equipment, Vican said, adding that more sophisticated equipment is needed for a serious response.
Currently, officers from other agencies, the State Investigation and Protection Agency, SIPA, the Directorate for Coordination of Police Bodies and the Interior Ministry of Republika Srpska, have been hired to assist the Border Police.
But the 72 police officers from Republika Srpska, the mainly Serbian entity in Bosnia, will remain on the border for only two more months.
Their engagement on the border is partly funded by the IOM, the International Organization for Migration, a department of the United Nations, which first announced funding would end on January 31, when the project was completed, but later extended funding until the end of March.
Republika Srpska Interior Minister Dragan Lukac said that if the IOM refuses to finance accommodation and food for the RS officers engaged in securing the border, they will have to be withdrawn.
But he warned that this would worsen problems with controlling the flow of illegal migrants into Bosnia.
According to the IOM and Bosnian authorities, in 2019, some 24,000 migrants entered Bosnia, most of them fleeing conflict or poverty in Afghanistan, Iraq, Morocco and Pakistan.
“It’s the only route currently open if you want to get from Greece to the other parts of the European Union,” said Peter Van Der Auweraert, head of mission for the IOM.
According to IOM data, from June 2018 to 2020, Bosnia received a total of 40.9 million euros in donor funding to address the migrant crisis.