Bosnia deported the first batch of Pakistani migrants back to their home country on Sunday in line with the 2020 agreement between the countries.
A group of migrants attempting to cross into Croatia gather around tents erected near the Maljevac border crossing, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 25 October 2018. Photo: EPA-EFE/FEHIM DEMIR.
“The first group of two Pakistani citizens was deported on Sunday,” said Adnan Malagic, spokesperson of Bosnia’s Ministry of Security, which is responsible for the implementation of a Readmission Agreement signed in November 2020.
Bosnia and Herzegovina thus became the first Western Balkan country to deport migrants without residence permits.
Authorities used a commercial flight from Sarajevo to Islamabad for the purpose, calling the deportation of the first group “only a test phase for bigger groups”.
“Commercial flights rules say that only two persons per flight can be deported, so we are counting in the future on having charter flights for bigger groups,” Malagic added.
According to the 2020 agreement, the competent authorities for receiving, submitting and processing readmissions will be the Bosnian Security Ministry and the Ministry of Interior for Pakistan.
The Ministry of Security recorded 9,329 migrants and refugees entering Bosnia this year by July.
According to the International Organisation for Migration, IOM, which coordinates Temporary Reception Centres in Bosnia, 2,133 of them are in camps and Pakistani citizens make up 13 per cent of camp inmates.
The issue of Pakistani migrants has been the source of tension between the two countries. Fahrudin Radoncic, then Bosnian security minister, accused Islamabad in April 2020 of not wanting to work with Sarajevo on the illegal migration issue.
The dispute started when Radoncic ordered Bosnia’s Service for Foreigners’ Affairs, SFA, to compile a list of an estimated 9,000 to 10,000 illegal migrants to be deported, excluding refugees from war-torn Syria.
He claimed that around 3,000 illegal migrants from Pakistan were among them, and that the Pakistan embassy did not want to co-operate in identifying them. Radoncic even demanded that the Pakistan ambassador to Sarajevo be declared persona non grata.
However, he did not receive the support of either state presidency chairman Sefik Dzaferovic or Bisera Turkovic, the foreign minister, which is why he resigned in early June.
Source link: balkaninsight.com
