Migrants in Bosnia face icy, 'dire' conditions

Migrants in Bosnia face icy, 'dire' conditions

Many migrants in northern Bosnia are stranded in freezing conditions, sleeping in the open and bathing in streams as temperatures plunge.

Lucy Fielder reports.

Two weeks after their camp was set on fire, former residents are stranded in northern Bosnia in what the International Organization for Migration - or IOM - calls 'dire' conditions.

Some sleep in the open, but these men have stayed in or around the destroyed Lipa camp, relying on makeshift tents.

Night time temperatures have plunged, and snow is expected at the weekend.

Many huddle around fires made from scraps of wood, others bathe in a nearby stream.

There's no electricity or showers.

Hundreds of migrants at Lipa had food and tea for the first time in five days on Tuesday, ending a protest over the lack of proper accommodation.

That was after the European Union approved 4.3 million dollars of additional funds to help Bosnia cope.

Brussels is calling for new accommodation for some of the 10,000 migrants from Asia, the Middle East and North Africa now stuck in Bosnia.

Most want to move on to EU countries.

The Lipa camp housed 1,200 people, but more than double that are now stranded without shelter in the surrounding region, close to the Croatian border.

The IOM says there's space for many of the stranded migrants in nearby centers, but it has struggled to get political agreement from national and local authorities.

The mayor of the nearest town, Bihac, says his region is shouldering a heavy burden, and has received no funds from the EU or anywhere else.