Asylum

Needs exist in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BH) in regard to reception facilities, most pertinently in supporting the competent bodies in opening the Centre for Asylum that has been constructed.

Bosnia and Herzegovina has no mechanisms for independently obtaining country of origin information. There is scope to assist the Ministry of Security in defining priority countries of origin and the structure and methodology for obtaining country of origin information, as well as common templates and minimum standards, and to subsequently build the capacities of staff in conducting research on countries of origin from a wide range of sources and developing country of origin information reports according to the agreed templates and standards.

As seen from the Border Police statistics, a number of irregular migrants are readmitted within the region to the countries they transited without having their citizenship established. This creates an issue whereby the country to which the migrant is being readmitted then has to recommence the process of determining the country of origin. Language analysis is performed in such cases in which there are doubts concerning the claimed country of origin of an asylum seeker. Doubts in regard to nationality may arise as a result of an applicant being unable to speak to an adequate level the primary language expected of his/her claimed country or region of origin or an applicant disclosing contradictory statements or other unreliable evidence regarding his/her country/region of origin. The piloting of language analysis on a small-scale could provide an insight into the scope for such a mechanism to be established at a wider level in the long-term.