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| - Bosnia's security minister on Wednesday called for confining migrants to tents surround by barbed wire to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus, as the pandemic throws up new obstacles for refugees trying to reach a locked-down Europe. While Bosnia has only detected some 40 infections of COVID-19 so far, authorities are fearful of a major outbreak that could cripple the country's healthcare systems. On Wednesday security minister Fahrudin Radoncic accused migrants of being "currently the biggest source of virus spread", though he offered no evidence and did not say whether any had been tested. The minister said it was necessary to "urgently build camps with tents and barbed wire around them." "Police will have to guard them and make it impossible for them to move," he said. He also asked police to round up migrants on the streets and put them in already existing reception centres. "They (the police) must physically force them to be there and forbid them to move," he said. Further south in Greece, a major hotspot for refugees, authorities have also imposed new restrictions on the movement of asylum-seekers in efforts to contain the virus that has halted movement around the globe. Some 5,500 migrants are currently based in official refugee camps in Bosnia, many from Pakistan, Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq. Hundreds also sleep rough or in abandoned buildings as they seek to make their way towards Croatia, the border of the EU. rus-ssm/pvh
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