Migrants leave to be relocated from the Lipa camp northwestern Bosnia, near the border with Croatia, Bosnia, Tuesday, Dec. 29, 2020. The European Union on Monday warned Bosnia that thousands of migrants face a winter without shelter, and it urged the country's bickering political authorities to set aside their differences and take action. (AP Photo/Kemal Softic)
Migrants leave to be relocated from the Lipa camp northwestern Bosnia, near the border with Croatia, Bosnia, Tuesday, Dec. 29, 2020. The European Union on Monday warned Bosnia that thousands of migrants face a winter without shelter, and it urged the country's bickering political authorities to set aside their differences and take action. (AP Photo/Kemal Softic)
Migrants leave to be relocated from the Lipa camp northwestern Bosnia, near the border with Croatia, Bosnia, Tuesday, Dec. 29, 2020. The European Union on Monday warned Bosnia that thousands of migrants face a winter without shelter, and it urged the country's bickering political authorities to set aside their differences and take action. (AP Photo/Kemal Softic)
Migrants leave to be relocated from the Lipa camp northwestern Bosnia, near the border with Croatia, Bosnia, Tuesday, Dec. 29, 2020. The European Union on Monday warned Bosnia that thousands of migran

Stranded migrants in Bosnia spark fears of humanitarian crisis


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Hundreds of migrants from a burned-out tent camp in north-west Bosnia have spent the night in buses after an attempt to relocate them failed, reflecting confusion in the Balkan country’s handling of the crisis.

The video above shows footage of the migrants and the arduous, wintry conditions with which they are contending.

Their plight worsened on Tuesday after buses sent by Bosnian authorities to transfer the migrants were cancelled after locals there organised protests to prevent the relocation. On Wednesday morning, migrants were still inside the buses, local media reported.

The Lipa camp near Bosnia's border with European Union member state Croatia was demolished in a fire last week, prompting warnings by EU officials and aid groups of a looming humanitarian disaster.

In June, the EU threatened to withdraw migrant support funding for Bosnia over its failure to provide adequate reception centres despite receiving money from Brussels.

The troubled Balkan country has been struggling with the influx of thousands of people seeking to reach western Europe. Bickering among Bosnia's ethnically divided authorities has prevented an organised response to the crisis, leaving about 3,000 migrants sleeping rough or in makeshift tents.

Bosnian migrant crisis: in pictures

No Shame

Lily Allen

(Parlophone)

Conflict, drought, famine

Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.

Band Aid

Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.

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