32 injured after fire breaks out at Bosnia migrant centre
Camp run by IOM holds 247 people seeking refuge in western Europe
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Your support makes all the difference.Thirty-two people were injured when a fire broke out at a migrant centre in northwestern Bosnia.
Police said the blaze is likely to have started accidentally from a cooking device in a dormitory at the Miral camp in Velika Kladusa.
Videos posted on social media showed some of the migrants jumping to safety out of the windows.
Firefighters extinguished the blaze on Saturday morning. Thirteen migrants remained in hospital for treatment to burns or fractures.
The camp, which is run by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), held 247 migrants and refugees at the time of the fire.
“IOM staff, who are present in the centres 24/7 and are trained to respond to such events, quickly responded and successfully evacuated the migrants from the burning part of the building,” the organisation said in a statement.
Thousands of migrants pass through Bosnia along the “Western Balkans route” an attempt to seek refuge in western Europe.
Last year, around 25,000 people from Asia and North Africa entered Bosnia from Serbia and Montenegro.
About 6,000 have arrived in the Balkan country so far this year, according to Bosnia’s security agencies.
Only around 3,500 of those have been accommodated in transit centres, leaving thousands sleeping rough.
Most of the new arrivals are from Pakistan, Syria, Iraq, Algeria, Morocco and Afghanistan, according to the latest UN statistics.
Additional reporting by Reuters and Associated Press
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