Caption for b-roll (short and extended versions)

This b-roll package includes general shots of the living situation for migrants and refugees gathered at a site in the city of Bihać, testimony from an 11-year-old Afghan boy, and soundbites from MSF’s Bosnia and Herzegovina field coordinator.

More than 4000 migrants and refugees are currently congregated in informal squats and tent settlements in Bosnia and Herzegovina, just across the border from Croatia.

For the approximately 3000 migrants and refugees gathered in the city of Bihać, most are sheltering within and just outside a deteriorating concrete structure at the edge of the city. A small field behind the building is scattered with yet more tents. It is from here that people make regular attempts to cross into Croatia by foot.

Poor humanitarian conditions in Bosnia and Herzegovina’s transient border settlements are made all the worse by a sluggish and inadequate response to the situation, says Juan Matias Gil, MSF Head of Mission for Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

“A lack of coordinated planning and reactive preparations in Bosnia and Herzegovina has led to inadequate conditions for migrants and refugees here, thus risking serious harm to their well-being, safety and health,” says Gil. “Not only do they not have access to medical services, they also lack basic assistance such as food, shelter, clothes and hygiene services.”

Since June of 2018, MSF has been working steadily on the ground at two spots on Bosnia and Herzegovina’s border with Croatia: the transient settlement in Bihać, as well as a spot near the border town of Velika Kladuša, where approximately 1000 more migrants and refugees are sheltering in tents. MSF currently operates a small mobile clinic that serves each site. This medical intervention is in coordination with local medical authorities, and its priority is to cover the most basic urgent needs of primary healthcare, as well as to refer more complex yet urgent cases to secondary healthcare in Una-Sana Canton.

“Facing a protracted situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina, we expect migrants will be faced with the same cycle of problematic issues that have plagued other spots along the Balkan route: skin and respiratory diseases, deterioration of mental health conditions, and an increase in violence,” says Gil.

“We are also alarmed by the reported pushbacks and violence against refugees and migrants on the Croatian side of the border,” says Gil.

MSF continues to be committed to providing humanitarian and medical support to migrants and refugees gathered along Bosnia and Herzegovina’s border with Croatia. But with winter approaching and a slow pace of humanitarian response so far, the organization is also concerned about further deteriorations in the welfare among this vulnerable population in coming months.

“Winter doesn’t give you time to lose,” says Gil. “It could be paid with lives if preparations are not organized in time.”