A convoy carrying migrants who had set up camp in Sarajevo was halted by authorities in Mostar, sparking an institutional clash between local authorities and the central government. The buses were only later authorized to continue to a reception center.
A five-bus convoy carrying 270 migrants, including many women and 18 children, was blocked in Bosnia-Herzegovina for four hours and only later authorized to go to the Salakovac reception center.
The center is about 100 kilometers south of Sarajevo and about 30 north of Mostar. The migrants had been in a shantytown in the historic center of Sarajevo that was dismantled on May 18.
Clash over responsibility
The convoy was stopped by Mostar canton police in Ivan Sedlo, on the administrative border between the Sarajevo canton and the capital of Herzegovina by the canton's police commissioner, the Bosnian Ilija Lasic. The transfer of the migrants to the Salakovac facilities, run by Bosnian central authorities, had been decided by a central government crisis unit a few days before.
On May 17, ''we announced this to the Mostar police,'' Minister for Security Dragan Mektic said, ''and they prevented the implementation of a measure issued by state institutions.''
Mektic underscored that the migration issue, according to the country's constitution, lies under the jurisdiction of his ministry. ''The commissioner,'' Mektic said, "committed a serious crime and will have to be taken before a prosecutor today. If anyone pressured him to give that order, it was his duty to refuse it. No one can order a policeman to commit a crime."