Lukavica Immigration Centre. Photo: Service for Foreigners’ Affairs.
A new report released on Tuesday by a UK- based NGO, Collective Aid, said 115 minors were detained in the Lukavica Immigration Centre between 2018 and 2024 in violation of international safeguards against arbitrary deprivation of liberty for minors.
This is just one of the troubling findings of the report, “Inside Lukavica: Bosnia’s Immigration Detention Black Box”.
The Lukavica Centre, located in East Sarajevo, in Bosnia’s Serb-dominated Republika Srpska entity, is operated by the Service for Foreigners’ Affairs, SFA, a state-level agency coming under the country’s Ministry of Security. It is the only facility in Bosnia dedicated to the detention of migrants and refugees.
How it functions is little known even to many people who work in migration; several people belonging to local and international NGOs told BIRN they know little about what goes on inside it.
Anna Gruber, Advocacy Manager for Collective Aid, who curated the report, said the lack of transparency surrounding the centre is one of its most concerning aspects. “When we started looking into it, there was barely any information available about how the Centre works and why people actually end up there.”
One former detainee quoted in the report claimed abuse and neglect is common. “You don’t feel like you are a human there. Your rights are not respected … This place is worse than prison,” he told Collective Aid.
The Centre’s conditions are made worse by the absence of an independent oversight mechanism. Bosnia’s ombudsperson has reported being denied entry to Lukavica by the SFA, in response to a specific complaint in 2024, an act she described as unlawful.
“We call on Bosnia to prohibit the detention of children, prioritise alternatives-to-detention, publish security criteria and detention durations, and ensure unhindered monitoring access for the Ombudsman and other NGOs,” Gruber from Collective Aid said.
“Every single one of my clients that ended up in custody waiting for a criminal trial after being detained in Lukavica has told me that conditions are much better in prison than in the Centre,” a lawyer in Sarajevo confirmed to BIRN. He asked to stay anonymous to avoid damaging his working relationship with the SFA.
“The Centre’s conditions are not over-sighted by any court – the only oversight is by the Ministry of Security, which runs the same agency that operates [Lukavica],” the same lawyer told BIRN.
The lawyer, who has represented around 30 detainees in Lukavica, told BIRN that access to the people he represents has become harder “in the past two-three years” as the regulation has changed; it now requires several steps before he can meet his clients. In some cases, the strict deadlines for appeals – three days for surveillance orders and eight for expulsion decisions – pass before they have a first meeting.
The NGO says that people have reported mould-infested cells, rationed water and poor nutrition and hygiene. Solitary confinement is also applied indiscriminately, putting people at risk of self-harm.
According to SFA data, collected by Collective Aid, around 4,631 people were detained in Lukavica between 2018 and 2024.
Lawyers for Vasa Prava, a legal NGO based in Sarajevo that offers free legal aid for migrants and refugees, have also described a widespread lack of clear justification for detention. They note that the SFA frequently labels people as “illegal” or “security threats” without meeting basic legal requirements to establish such assertions.
BIRN has approached the SFA for comment on the Collective Aid report.
