MOSTAR, Feb 7 (Hina) - Of the 1,616-kilometre-long border of Bosnia-Herzegovina, only 10 percent is under the control of the state border police. By the end of March, state border police officers are to take control of some 60 percent
of the frontier, the state border department's head, Radisa Samardzija, said on Wednesday. British and Italian premiers, Tony Blair and Guiliano Amato, have recently warned that Bosnia has become a major channel in the transport of eastern European and Far East immigrants who are trying to enter European Union countries. The two premiers have proposed that EU nations should help strengthen the customs and police control of the Bosnian-Croatian frontier in order to prevent traffic in human beings. Their Croatian counterpart, Ivica Racan, on Monday said his country needed assistance for the resolution of this problem and asked EU member-states to offer financi
MOSTAR, Feb 7 (Hina) - Of the 1,616-kilometre-long border of
Bosnia-Herzegovina, only 10 percent is under the control of the
state border police.
By the end of March, state border police officers are to take
control of some 60 percent of the frontier, the state border
department's head, Radisa Samardzija, said on Wednesday.
British and Italian premiers, Tony Blair and Guiliano Amato, have
recently warned that Bosnia has become a major channel in the
transport of eastern European and Far East immigrants who are
trying to enter European Union countries.
The two premiers have proposed that EU nations should help
strengthen the customs and police control of the Bosnian-Croatian
frontier in order to prevent traffic in human beings.
Their Croatian counterpart, Ivica Racan, on Monday said his country
needed assistance for the resolution of this problem and asked EU
member-states to offer financial and technical aid rather than
sending their police officers to Croatia.
The special envoy of the United Nations' Secretary-General,
American diplomat Jacques Paul Klein, has applauded the initiative
of Britain and Italy to provide help for Bosnia in the form of
personnel, and cited data that last year, between 40 and 50 thousand
people passed through Bosnia in transit country in their bid to
reach western Europe. Organised criminals, who transported people
without valid documents, earned tens of millions of German marks
from the smuggling.
(hina) sb ms