Dispute over sheep

Police in Bosnia shoot armed migrant dead

Special unit of the Bosnian police (archive photo)

(Bild: AP (Symbolbild))

Police in the Serbian part of Bosnia shot and killed an armed migrant on Tuesday night. He had barricaded himself in a house from which he fired shots and threw a hand grenade.

The incident took place in the village of Zovi Do, 50 kilometers southeast of Mostar. A video from a private Bosnian-Serbian television station showed police officers asking the man to surrender in English. He replied that they should leave. He had previously locked himself in an uninhabited house.

Sheep stolen
The man fired shots from an automatic rifle and threw a hand grenade when someone tried to approach the house. Prior to this, he had probably had an argument with the residents of the village because he had allegedly stolen a sheep.

The police shot the armed migrant dead. No one else was injured, it was reported. It was not initially clear where the man came from. A branch of the so-called Balkan route, through which migrants from Turkey try to reach Western Europe, runs through Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Almost 2000 migrants in Bosnia
According to the UN refugee agency UNHCR, there were almost 2,000 refugees and migrants in asylum shelters in Bosnia at the end of July. However, many do not register and try to continue their journey via neighboring EU country Croatia. In most cases, there are violent conflicts between them rather than attacks on the local population.