Lipa refugee camp

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The Lipa refugee camp is a refugee camp on the EU's external border in Bosnia and Herzegovina .

location

The refugee camp is located in western Bosnia, close to the border of the EU -Landes Croatia , within the boundaries of the greater community Bihac belonging and since the Bosnian war uninhabited village of Lipa, 25 kilometers southeast of the city center. The M5 trunk road runs nearby . The camp is located on an offshoot of the Balkan route , via which refugees and migrants from Turkey want to get to Western Europe . It is located 750 meters above sea level in largely unpopulated surroundings and can only be reached via unpaved dirt roads.

story

The Lipa camp went into operation on April 21, 2020 as an all-male camp with a capacity of 1000 people after the Bira camp in a disused post-war refrigerator factory on the outskirts of Bihać was about to be closed. The successor camp Lipa was only intended as an emergency solution during the COVID-19 pandemic ( Lipa Emergency Tent Camp “ Lipa Emergency Tent Camp ”).

After the Bira camp was closed on September 7, 2020 and then evacuated by local authorities using force, the International Organization for Migration warned in early October of an impending humanitarian crisis due to the upcoming winter. On December 21, 2020, the Bosnian Council of Ministers decided to turn the facility in Lipa into a permanent reception center in the form of a container warehouse with a capacity of 1500 people. By the end of the necessary renovations in spring 2021, the residents should move back to the Bira camp, but the authorities of the canton Una-Sana refused to reopen this camp, as refugees and migrants are no longer to be accommodated near cities.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM), which operates refugee shelters throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina, decided to clear the Lipa camp on December 23, 2020, as it is not winter-proof. On that day, former residents set tents and containers on fire. The infrastructure of the camp was partially destroyed or damaged. A meal tent did not burn and was therefore used as a makeshift sleeping place in the following days. To keep themselves warm, the migrants also operated small fire pits inside the tent.

On December 29, 2020, at the initiative of Security Minister Selmo Cikotić, the relocation of around 700 migrants from the Lipa camp to former barracks in Bradina , a village in the Konjic community several hours' drive southeast of Bihać , did not take place because it did There had also been spontaneous protests from locals there. Authorities in the region also refused to move because they were illegally not involved in the decision-making process. The migrants therefore spent one night in the buses provided. The following day, the bus operators set an ultimatum because they needed the waiting vehicles for their regular traffic. Because no decision had been made by afternoon, the refugees had to return to the remains of the camp under police escort, the buses left empty. The previous warehouse operator IOM, however, has now had the tents that had not been burned down after the camp closure announced by it on December 23rd. The canton said it had a new tent erected, but around 800 refugees had to spend two nights outdoors. Emergency food will continue to be distributed by the Bosnian Red Cross, the Danish Refugee Aid and volunteers from the city and canton.

A special meeting of the Ministerial Council of Bosnia-Herzegovina was scheduled on December 31st. The council decided to instruct the city of Bihać and the canton of Una-Sana to temporarily reopen the former Bira camp. However, the mayor and the canton categorically refuse to comply; several hundred locals blocked the entrance to the building. The country's security minister therefore asked the defense minister for administrative assistance in the form of military tents for the Lipa camp. On January 1, 2021, several hundred migrants protested against the situation in the camp with banners and refusal to eat. On the same day, 150 soldiers began setting up tents. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) will again be responsible for the administration of the camp. Because the infrastructure in Lipa is still rudimentary (including no running water, no permanent electricity connection, only makeshift heating and food supplies), the EU appeals (Interior Commissioner Ylva Johansson , Vice-President of the European Commission and Chair of the Council for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell ) continues to temporarily reopen the empty Bira warehouse in Bihać, where the entire infrastructure is in place. Putting up tents is only an emergency solution for a few days.

As a result of a meeting between Security Minister Cikotić and the EU's Special Representative and Ambassador Johann Sattler , the Ambassadors of Austria, Germany and Italy on January 2, 2021 as well as an on-site visit in the camp on January 3, 2021, at which the Security Minister, Defense Minister Sifet, among others Podžić , the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces Senad Mašović , the Director of the Foreign Service Slobodan Ujić as well as representatives of the EU, the IOM and the regional authorities were present, it was decided to restart the Lipa camp, which was closed by the IOM before Christmas, and as soon as possible for to make a longer stay suitable. Among other things, the military tents, which were previously unusable due to a lack of flooring, are to be retrofitted, concrete foundations are to be built, a sewerage system as well as permanent electricity and water connections are to be installed. The presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina is to decide on the participation of the armed forces in the planned emergency measures in an emergency meeting on January 4th. The Bira camp in the city is not to be reopened. In the long term, migrants should be evenly distributed across Bosnia and Herzegovina. The part of the migrants who went on hunger strike called for the camp to be dissolved and said that they would not stop their action until the situation had been resolved.

living conditions

Up until the fire, 400 to 500 men were housed in three large tents. On December 1, 2020, 1,272 people lived there. The camp is neither connected to the water nor to the electricity grid , for which the Bosnian authorities are responsible. According to the IOM, it can only be used as a summer camp and not winter-proof as the plastic tents cannot hold the weight of the snow. Refugee workers have criticized the inhumane conditions in the camp. In mid-December 2020, it was overcrowded with 1,400 people.

Since the regional authorities were unable to provide enough replacement accommodation over the Christmas period (the former Bira camp in a former factory building had been disbanded months earlier, residents protested against a temporary reopening), many refugees returned to the burned-down Lipa camp at the end of December 2020 after heavy snowfalls back, although there is practically a lack of infrastructure there (winter clothing, warmth, food, medical care, electricity, water). Several thousand other migrants who had already left the camp before the fire are living similarly precariously in temporary accommodation, some in forests, near the border with Croatia. The activities of private refugee aid organizations were banned in the canton of Una-Sana in May 2020.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Camp in Bosnia cleared: major fire in the Lipa refugee camp. In: tagesschau.de . December 23, 2020, accessed December 25, 2020 .
  2. ↑ a b c d e Srdjan Govedarica: Refugees in Bosnia: In plastic tents through the winter. In: tagesschau.de . December 14, 2020, accessed December 25, 2020 .
  3. ^ Council of Ministers reached an Agreement on Lipa Camp: Migrants will stay. In: Sarajevo Times. December 21, 2020, accessed December 29, 2020 (American English).
  4. ↑ COVID-19 Emergency Shelter Provided for Homeless Migrants in Bosnia and Herzegovina. April 28, 2020, accessed December 27, 2020 .
  5. ^ IOM Warns of Humanitarian Crisis as Migrants Evicted from Bosnian Camp. October 2, 2020, accessed on December 29, 2020 .
  6. ^ Council of Ministers reached an Agreement on Lipa Camp: Migrants will stay. In: Sarajevo Times. December 21, 2020, accessed December 29, 2020 (American English).
  7. ↑ Dragan Maksimovic, Rüdiger Rossig: West Bosnia: Fire in the refugee camp. In: Deutsche Welle . December 23, 2020, accessed December 25, 2020 .
  8. ^ Hundreds of Migrants still waiting in Buses for Solution where they will be accommodated. https://www.sarajevotimes.com/173258-2/
  9. ↑ https://avaz.ba/vijesti/bih/620501/prazni-autobusi-napustili-lipu-migranti-vraceni-u-ono-sto-je-ostalo-od-kampa
  10. ↑ https://bhrt.ba/autobusi-otisli-prazni-migranti-se-vratili-u-lipu-gradani-ne-daju-povratak-u-biru/
  11. ↑ https://bhrt.ba/migranti-u-teskim-uslovima-na-kisi-pod-otvorenim-nebom/
  12. ↑ https://bhrt.ba/oruzane-snage-bih-montiraju-vojne-satore-u-migrantskom-kampu-lipa/
  13. ↑ https://www.tagesschau.de/ausland/lipa-fluechtlinge-101.html
  14. ↑ https://www.euronews.com/2021/01/01/bosnia-migrants-army-sets-up-tents-for-hundreds-stuck-at-fire-hit-camp-after-uproar
  15. ↑ https://www.br.de/nachrichten/meldung/fluechtlinge-sollen-im-zerstoerten-bosnischen-lager-lipa-bleiben,30035b5cb
  16. ↑ https://bhrt.ba/cikotic-vojni-satori-privremeno-rjesenje-za-migrante-u-lipi-bira-nije-opcija/
  17. ^ Lorenzo Tondo: Fire destroys migrant camp in Bosnia . In: The Guardian . December 23, 2020, ISSN  0261-3077 (English, theguardian.com [accessed December 27, 2020]).
  18. ^ Adelheid Wölfl: Lipa refugee camp in Bosnia set on fire. In: DerStandard . December 23, 2020, accessed December 25, 2020 .
  19. ^ Council of Ministers reached an Agreement on Lipa Camp: Migrants will stay. In: Sarajevo Times. December 21, 2020, accessed December 29, 2020 (American English).
  20. ↑ Burned out tent camp: Hundreds of migrants camp outdoors in Bosnia during snowfall . In: FAZ.NET . ISSN  0174-4909 ( faz.net [accessed December 27, 2020]).
  21. ↑ Erich Rathfelder: After a fire in the Lipa refugee camp: Thousands of nature delivered . In: The daily newspaper: taz . December 26, 2020, ISSN  0931-9085 ( taz.de [accessed December 27, 2020]).
  22. ↑ Thousands of refugees have to go back to the burned down camp. In: t-online.de. December 27, 2020, accessed December 27, 2020 .
  23. ↑ Erich Rathfelder: Balkan route in Bosnia and Herzegovina: 12,000 people in the dead end . In: The daily newspaper: taz . September 23, 2020, ISSN  0931-9085 ( taz.de [accessed December 27, 2020]).
  24. ↑ Jana Lapper: Refugees at the EU's external border: no more help to be expected . In: The daily newspaper: taz . May 21, 2020, ISSN  0931-9085 ( taz.de [accessed December 27, 2020]).

Coordinates: 44 ° 42 ′ 4 "  N , 16 ° 4 ′ 24.7"  E