Eurasia Press & News

After Bosnia’s parliament failed to agree on changes to the electoral law for Mostar, it appears that the city will again miss out on local elections due in October.

After several towns were almost completely flooded on Thursday, the country’s presidency tasked the armed forces with helping to rescue people trapped in their homes.

The High Representative has raised the issue of residence checks in Republika Srpska in a meeting in Washington, while the Bosnian Croat Presidency member said the new rules had been rushed through ahead of the general election.

Trpe Stojanovski, director of the Migration, Asylum, Refugees Regional Initiative, tells Balkan Insight that Balkan countries cannot deal with rapidly rising migrant numbers from Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

Bosnian justice minister Barisa Colak admitted that the country had not gone far enough to meet its goals in prosecuting people suspected of crimes committed during the 1992-95 conflict.

The defence for former Bosnian Army soldier Edin Dzeko, charged with wartime crimes against Croats, said that testimony about alleged assault and extortion was based on a mistaken identity.

A witness told the war crimes trial of Bosnian Serb ex-soldier Vitomir Rackovic that her sister said that she and others were raped by Serb fighters in the Visegrad area in 1992.

Former Croatian Defence Council fighter Vid Palameta was indicted for alleged crimes against Bosniak civilians held prisoner at the Dretelj detention camp in the summer of 1993.

Former policemen Nedjelko Kuljic and Zeljko Ilic, accused of wartime crimes including the torture and murder of non-Serbs in Bileca in 1992, insisted they were innocent.

Police detained Emir Pajazetovic on suspicion of injuring about 30 people when he allegedly threw an explosive device into a disco in Velika Kladusa after being thrown out of the club.