The further outsourcing of the EU’s migration controls under the new Pact on Migration is likely to have significant impacts on people on the move in Bosnia & Herzegovina (BiH), making an already dire situation worse.

Border pushbacks

Our team on the ground in Sarajevo continues to hear harrowing stories of illegal pushbacks and border violence in Croatia, Serbia, and Bulgaria. Instances of illegal pushbacks - where migrants and refugees are 'pushed', or forced, back across a border they have crossed without due process - remain commonplace and often involve considerable cruelty, humiliation, and violence.

Survivors of these traumatic experiences are left with lasting scars – both physical and psychological. We recently spoke with a 30-year-old Moroccan man who had experienced multiple violent pushbacks on the Balkan route. He told us despondently:

“I wanted to become a stand-up comedian, but I’ve lost all my sense of humour on this journey.”

A 21-year-old Algerian man who similarly had experienced multiple violent pushbacks on the same route showed us scars he had from a dog bite and a stabbing – injuries sustained during two separate instances of pushbacks at the Turkey-Bulgaria and Turkey-Greece borders. A Syrian man, in turn, lifted his T-shirt to show us a back brace he was wearing as a result of being beaten with batons by Croatian officers prior to being pushed back to BiH.

A stab wound sustained during an illegal pushback (left) and a back brace worn as a result of a beating during a pushback (right). Photos: Lukia Nomikos.

Women and children are not exempt from the practice of pushbacks either. A 35-year-old Afghan woman told us about her recent experience of being arbitrarily detained in Croatia before being pushed back to BiH along with her two small children, aged 3 and 10:

“My son was scared and crying.
I tried to console him by telling him it was all just a game.”

Croatia’s role

*A Syrian man’s testimony via Google Translate on being pushed back from Croatia to BiH. Photo: Lukia Nomikos*.

The Pact’s emphasis on securing the EU’s external borders through stricter migration controls may, even if inadvertently, encourage the continuation or expansion of these illegal practices, both to and from BiH.

Given its location on the EU’s external border, Croatia faces significant pressure from the rest of the EU to effectively manage the influx of people on the move. As a country that is already notorious in its track record of unlawful, and often violent, pushbacks and as the country’s authorities strive to meet the expectations set by the EU, this pressure may end up further increasing these practices with even more people being pushed back to neighbouring BiH and Serbia.

As a major transit country along the Balkan route and its status as an EU candidate , BiH is likely to also face increased pressure from the EU to curb irregular migration into the EU, as a pre-accession condition. This is likely to lead to stricter border controls to prevent people transiting through the country to reach the EU. But similarly to Croatia, when these measures fail, BiH may be incentivised to carry out illegal border pushbacks instead in an effort to meet its end of the deal with the EU and keep the dream of EU accession alive.

Stricter controls at the border between Croatia and BiH, and more pushbacks from Croatia, are likely to lead to an increase in the number of people on the move being stranded in BiH, unable to move forward into the EU. This could provide a further incentive for pushbacks, as Bosnian authorities try to grapple with the rising number of people on the move now stuck within its borders.

Our team recently spoke with a 30-year-old man from Morocco who reported being pushed back from BiH to Montenegro on 24th April 2024. This seems to be part of a wider trend with local actors reporting an increase in pushbacks from BiH to Montenegro in the last few months.

The impact of decisions in Serbia
While the Serbian Special Military Operation which began in October 2023, the establishment of an additional operational base in Mali Zvornik on the Bosnian border in January 2024, and the resulting shift in the migration route towards BiH may partly account for the rise in pushbacks from BiH to Montenegro, it is not enough on its own to explain this new phenomenon.

For years, people on the move have been entering BiH, mostly from Serbia, yet there are very few recorded pushbacks committed by Bosnian authorities to Serbia or elsewhere. Out of the 1,835 pushback testimonies published by the Border Violence Monitoring Network since 2022, less than 2% of pushbacks were carried out by Bosnian authorities. UNHCR data shows that out of the approximately 29,000 people that were recorded as being pushed back to Serbia in 2021, only 1% were pushed back from BiH and in 2022, this percentage was almost non-existent at 0.03%.

While the rise in pushbacks committed by Bosnian authorities could be a result of fears over the large number of people who are re-rerouting to BiH from Serbia following the latter’s police operations, it could also be a sign of BiH ramping up its border security in an effort to meet the EU’s externalisation and pre-accession demands.

Moreover, with the new State Commission for the Border paving the way for a status agreement with Frontex, it is likely that the EU’s border agency will be deployed in BiH in the near future. Given that there is evidence that Frontex not only turns a blind eye to pushbacks and other human rights violations, but also plays an active role in these, the impact of Frontex deployment is more likely to increase pushbacks than stop them despite the EU’s insistence that it operates in accordance with international law and human rights standards.

Conditions in reception facilities in BiH

Based on conversations with people on the move and reports from local NGOs, the security situation in Blažuj, the men’s camp on the outskirts of Sarajevo, and its surroundings, seems to be deteriorating. Our team on the ground has heard from several camp residents that they do not feel safe in the camp or its surroundings due to tensions between different groups and personal belongings being stolen.

A new squat has recently opened in the city and it is possible that this is a reaction to the worsening security situation in the camp. When we asked one of the squat residents why he was not staying at Blažuj, he responded that there had been ‘problems’ at the camp and did not elaborate.

While most of the people we speak to respond in the affirmative when asked whether the camp is ‘ok’ and report it being an improvement to the ones they have previously stayed at in Serbia and Bulgaria, as we have reported previously, the camp conditions remain inadequate in terms of normative standards.

Our team has heard reports of the food being inadequate (with those who can afford it, buying it outside the camp), hygiene standards being subpar (e.g. bedbugs) and medication, besides paracetamol, not being available.

A sad smiley, along with the text ‘sad Amise’ drawn on a building near the family camp Usivak (left)
and a group of people on the move near the men’s camp Blazuj (right). Photos: Lukia Nomikos.

As mentioned above, Croatia’s policy responses and reaction to the EU Pact are likely to result in a bottleneck at the border between Croatia and BiH, increasing the number of people stuck in limbo in BiH. Unless the country’s reception capacity and access to asylum procedures are rapidly and significantly improved, this could lead to an overcrowding in the country’s reception facilities and subsequently worse living conditions, heightened tensions and the depletion of reception resources.

*A sign outside the detention centre in Lukavica, which misleadingly describes the centre as a ‘reception facility’. Photo: Lukia Nomikos.*

Detention in BiH

The country currently operates just one dedicated immigration detention centre in the Lukavica suburb of Sarajevo. The opening of a second detention centre in Lipa is on hold.

The detention centre in Lukavica continues to be a source of concern. Local actors describe it as a “black hole” where people on the move, including families and children, are detained for long periods of time without understanding the reason or knowing when they will be released.

In 2022, the centre held a total of 714 persons, including 16 children. Month by month data is not available so it is unclear if overcrowding occurs in the centre which has a reported capacity for 120 detainees.

According to a report by Heinrich Boll Stiftung, detainees who were interviewed reported the total arbitrary nature of the detention, the lack of any basic human living conditions and brutality suffered at the hands of the police. There have also been reports of racism from guards and a lack of access to clothes, legal support, and translation.

If the Italy-Albania deal is replicated elsewhere – as seems to be the will of more than half of EU member states – BiH could see a massive increase in arbitrary detention. Under the Italy-Albania deal, people rescued at sea by Italian ships would be taken to two detention centres in Albania, automatically detained and unable to leave the centres for up to 18-months.

Even if no such deal is drawn up with BiH, the likely increase in the number of people being stuck in the country as a consequence of the EU Pact and the pressure to control migration flows to Europe as a pre-accession condition, could drive BiH to increase the detention of people on the move in an attempt to manage migration within the country.

Deaths

The building of border fences and walls and increased security and surveillance has forced people on the move to take longer and more dangerous routes in order to avoid being caught by police or border officers who will likely push them back to the country they entered from. This sometimes has deadly consequences. “People are freezing to death in forests, drowning in rivers or dying from sheer exhaustion”, as reported by Lighthouse Reports.

According to IOM, 376 people have been recorded as dead or missing in the Western Balkans since 2014. The real number is likely to be higher.

Rather than expanding safe and regular pathways to allow people to reach protection in Europe without having to rely on treacherous journeys, the EU Pact is ramping up the securitisation and externalisation of EU migration policies – policies that have already resulted in the deaths of thousands of people seeking safety and stability in the EU.

What does all this mean?

The securitisation and externalisation of EU migration policy has not stopped or deterred irregular migration to the EU, it has only made the journeys more arduous and dangerous for people on the move. People will continue to flee their countries because they have no other choice.

The continuation and bolstering of these militarised strategies under the new EU Pact on Migration will likely lead to more deaths, pushbacks, and other human rights violations; overcrowding and worse living conditions in reception facilities; and an increase in arbitrary detention – not just in BiH but across the EU and other non-EU countries to which externalisation will be extended. Amnesty International characterises the Pact’s likely outcome as “a surge in suffering on every step of a person’s journey to seek asylum in the EU.”

While the future of migration in the EU may seem bleak right now, especially considering the far-right’s significant gains in the recent EU elections, we must continue to fight for the rights of people on the move, challenge inhumane policies that violate international law and the values that the EU is supposedly built on, and advocate for safe and legal migration routes to the EU. Compassion is not in short supply and change is possible.

Words by Advocacy and Communications Officer, Lukia Nomikos.

The new EU Pact on Migration and EU border externalisation in Bosnia and Herzegovina: Part Two