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| - Bosnian police on Wednesday arrested six migrants accused of raping several teenagers at a reception centre where they were living in the country's northwest. Bosnia has become a key transit country for thousands of migrants from Asia, Africa and the Middle East who traverse the Balkans every year in hopes of reaching Western Europe. Among them are hundreds of minors travelling alone who are particularly vulnerable to myriad dangers of the journey, rights groups warn. The suspects, six men in their late teens and early 20s from Afghanistan and Pakistan, were arrested in a migrant centre in the town of Bihac in an "operation targeting persons suspected of rape", a police spokesman said. There are "several" victims who "are minors accommodated in the same centre," spokesman Ale Siljdedic told AFP. He added some of the suspects are accused of committing the rape while are others are accused of assisting. Another four migrants were arrested in the same operation on suspicion of drugs trafficking and possession, the spokesman said. The centre in Bihac, located at the site of a former refrigerator factory, houses between 1,700 and 1,950 migrants, said an official with International Organization for Migration (IOM). Among them are between 350 to 400 unaccompanied minors -- boys between 15 to 17 years old -- the official said, asking for anonymity. They are placed in a "protected zone" but are "free to move", he added. About 5,500 migrants are currently living in several IOM-run camps in Bosnia, including in the Bihac and Sarajevo area. But hundreds of others are scattered throughout the rest of the country, sleeping rough or in makeshift homes, according to authorities. rus/ev/ljv/ssm/pma
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