Deaths at the Serbian-Bosnian border

Federal television of BiH reported on the situation in Banja Koviljaca, a small border town in Serbia from where refugees are trying to reach Bosnia. Two countries are separated by the natural border - river Drina.

KlikAktiv’s lawyer Milica Svabic gave a statement on the situation in this area with a special focus on the increased number of push-backs from the Bosnian police resulting in a high number of deaths and drowning in the river Drina.

When trying to cross the border over the river Drina refugees are using small boats or rafts. But when they reach the Bosnian coast police are usually already there. They take away their boats and force them to swim back to the Serbian coast. They threaten them with guns, throw rocks at them, or release dogs on them.

“This seems to be happing very often, but nobody speaks up about it. Two weeks ago we had the same case when boys who were in the same situation reached out to us. Six of them tried to swim over the river but only four of them managed to come to the other shore, while the other two drowned. We contacted authorities on both sides of the river and in five days we found out that a total of seven bodies were found. They all drowned in the same way in Drina. So far fluctuation of refugees from Serbia to Bosnia was happening without significant violence or problems. However, now we are witnessing more often that refugees are facing problems from the Bosnian police who beats them, forces them to go into the river and releases dogs on them.” says Milica Svabic for the Federal television.

On the same day when we visited Banja Koviljaca (3rd September 2020) we heard that another 4 men from Syria and Iraq have drowned. A group of nine refugees tried to reach the Bosnian side but they were all pushed back by the Bosnian police. Only five of them managed to swim back to the Serbian side of the river.