Una-Sana Canton

A state of natural disaster has been declared in Una-Sana Canton, one of ten cantons in Bosnia's Federation entity, after heavy rain.

"Our citizens have had a sleepless night, the situation is extremely difficult," Una-Sana Canton's Prime Minister, Mustafa Ruznic, said, N1 reported.

Many roads have been flooded, cutting off towns from the rest of the country. Photo: N1

Besides such abuses, experts also say the procedure could be illegal. "There are some doubts over the legality of what we are seeing happening between Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina in terms of European law," Italian jurist and migration expert Gianfranco Schiavone told BIRN.

Not allowed to seek asylum

The Prime Minister of Una Sana Canton, one of ten cantons in Bosnia's Federation entity, Mustafa Ruznic, has sent an open letter to Bosnia's state security and foreign ministers, as well as to the head of the Foreigners Affairs Service, SPS, demanding an explanation for the increased number of migrants and refugees reportedly returned from Croatia to Bosnia based on a bilateral readmission agre

Ramiz Hodzic pleaded not guilty at the Cantonal Court in the city of Bihac on Wednesday to committing a war crime against the civilian population in the Velika Kladusa area in 1994.

"Honourable court, I understand the indictment and the charges against me, but I am not guilty," Hodzic said.

A criminal complaint about the murders of the four prisoners of war and two civilians was filed in 1998, and an investigation was opened seven years later, targeting three members of the People's Defence force of the Autonomous Province of Western Bosnia, a separatist statelet that existed during the war between 1993 and 1995 with its 'capital' in Velika Kladusa.

The UN Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina on Monday condemned the Croatian police's allegedly violent pushback of a group of migrants trying to cross the border into the European Union country.

A minister in a Bosnian canton bordering Croatia said the EU member state had forcibly returned over 7,000 migrants and refugees to Bosnia last year, asking why his own country had not done the same to its neighbours.

Human and minority rights, the rule of law and media freedom remain endangered in several Southeast and Central European countries in 2020, especially in the circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic, Human Rights Watch, HRW, said in its latest report published on Wednesday.

The report looks at over 60 countries, among them Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Serbia, Hungary and Poland.

The authorities in the Una-Sana Canton, in cooperation with the International Organization for Migration, moved a first group of about 120 migrants and refugees to the new reception centre in Lipa, not far from the town of Bihac, on Tuesday.

The International Organization for Migration, IOM, which manages temporary reception centres, TRCs, for migrants and refugees in Bosnia and Herzegovina, told BIRN it had found no cases of coronavirus among the roughly 6,500 migrants held in them.