Bosnia’s minister wants army at border

SARAJEVO: Bosnia’s security minister said on Wednesday he would seek legislative changes to enable border deployments of the army to help stop migrants entering the impoverished country en route to European Union territory.

Hundreds of thousands of migrants who streamed northwards through the Balkans to EU territory in 2015 largely bypassed Bosnia. But the ex-Yugoslav republic now finds itself struggling to accommodate about 5,000 people intent on making their way via neighbouring Croatia to affluent EU countries further north.

More than 9,000 people from Asia and North Africa have entered Bosnia from Serbia and Montenegro since the beginning of 2018, including 3,000 over the past month, and a similar number have managed to cross into EU member Croatia.

"I am planning to initiate changes to the law that will provide for the deployment of the army in the protection of our borders," Security Minister Dragan Mektic told reporters. Regional police in northwest Bosnia said on Wednesday 15 migrants were injured in violence involving around 50 people staying in a makeshift camp on the outskirts of Velika Kladusa.