Identification of migrants who drowned in the Drina underway

Serbian Minister of Internal Affairs Ivica Dačić stated that the identification of eight migrants who drowned in the Drina after a boat capsized is underway, and that the ministries of internal affairs of Serbia and Republika Srpska are cooperating at all times.

The Serbian MUP emphasizes that police and rescuers continue searching the Drina River and the surrounding terrain for migrants who drowned last night.

Dačić said that MUP members, by searching the Drina and sandbanks in the area of Vrhpolje near Ljubovija, found the bodies of seven illegal migrants, while the body of another victim was found on the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

He specified that members of the Emergency Situations Sector pulled the bodies of six migrants onto the shore near Vrhpolje, who had attempted to cross the river from Serbia between the locations of Drlača near Ljubovija and Orlica in the municipality of Zvornik, the Serbian MUP announced.

“Also, another body was spotted in the Vrhpolje area on inaccessible terrain, and members of the Gendarmerie Diving Unit are working intensively on its extraction, while another body was found on the territory of BiH near the location of Lonjina,” Dačić stated.

Of the total of 18 surviving migrants rescued after the boat capsized, 16 are from Syria and two from Egypt. Of that number, eight are adults and ten are minors.

The Zvornik Police Administration earlier announced that out of 30 migrants who attempted to cross from Serbia to BiH by boat, 15 reached the shore.

Director of the Republika Srpska Civil Protection Administration Boris Trninić told Srna today that eight bodies were found in the Drina near Bratunac, where a boat with about thirty migrants capsized early this morning.

He stated that four bodies were handed over to the Serbian MUP, while a decision is pending from the police regarding the fifth body, which was found closer to the riverbank on the BiH side.

According to his words, the search for the missing continues, and an unofficial list of the missing includes a mother and child.