Since spring 2018, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) has become one of the most important cross-roads along the Balkan route. The build up of people-on-the-move in the country in Sarajevo, Tuzla, and especially in the Una-Sana Canton at the Croatian border, has been marked by myriad forms of violence used against this population by national police. Added to this is the situation in the EU-funded and IOM-run camps, whose conditions can be described as a form of violence and are undoubtedly inhumane.
This report is part of a relatively new branch of our network that documents violence within a state’s borders on a recurring basis. Here, we look more broadly at violence against people-on-the-move in BiH, and contextualize it in the political context, especially with regard to the impact of the EU. In the report you will find:
- An overview of the political context and the camp management
- Testimonies of violent incidents and forced evictions
- Background information on EU funding for Bosnian border police
Read the full report below for extended analysis and testimonies by people-on-the-move, as informed by our long-term monitoring through qualitative and quantitative observations of the situation on the ground by BVMN’s partner organizations.
This report was produced within the Border Violence Monitoring Network’s (BVMN) Internal Violence Working group. BVMN is a network of watchdog organizations active in Greece and the Western Balkans including No Name Kitchen, Rigardu, Are You Syrious, Mobile Info Team, Disinfaux Collective, Josoor, ports Sarajevo, InfoKolpa, Centre for Peace Studies, Mare Liberum, and Collective Aid. As such, this document was produced through joint collaboration of these groups.