II. Inside Lukavica Detention Center: Bosnia’s Immigration Rules and Stakeholders Explained
This blog is part of our series unpacking findings from our new report on Lukavica, Bosnia and Herzegovina's only official immigration detention centre. The report traces how thousands of people, including children, have passed through Lukavica's locked doors, and how legal rules, institutional grey zones and political choices combine to make that possible.
Here, we zoom in on one crucial piece: the legal framework that governs immigration detention in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and how, in practice, it allows people on the move to disappear into a system that is very hard to understand and even harder to challenge - plus the key players who keep it running.
The laws that decide your freedom
If you are a non-citizen in Bosnia today, your fate is shaped by a stack of laws that most people will never read. The main ones are the Law on Aliens (2015), Law on Asylum (2016), Law on the Service for Foreigners’ Affairs (2005), the Border Control Law (2025), and accompanying bylaws.
On paper, these laws define when the state can detain you, which rights you should have in detention, and what conditions detention facilities must meet. They exist alongside Bosnia's obligations under international treaties like the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Convention against Torture, the European Convention on Human Rights and the 1951 Refugee Convention. These instruments forbid arbitrary detention, torture and inhuman or degrading treatment, and they ban returning someone to a place where they face a real risk of serious harm.
In reality, as our report shows, what is written in law and what happens in Lukavica are often worlds apart.
Vague grounds, wide powers
The starting point is deceptively simple: the law says a foreigner can be detained if they pose a threat to public order or national security, or if there is a justified fear that they will abscond. But these phrases - "threat to public order", "national security", "fear of absconding" - are so broad that they leave a huge amount of room for interpretation.
The law then lists examples of what this might mean, but the language remains vague enough that almost any situation can be made to fit. In practice, our analysis identifies four main grounds that are used over and over again:
Being considered a security threat to public order, security, international relations or public health.
Being readmitted to Bosnia under bilateral agreements when another country sends you back because your stay there was considered "illegal".
Having received an expulsion order and being seen as likely to "escape or otherwise prevent" your removal.
Having an identity that cannot be clearly established within six hours of arriving at official premises at the border.
Any one of these can open the door to administrative detention in Lukavica, and they often overlap. For instance, people who are readmitted from Croatia under a bilateral agreement may also receive expulsion orders, and if they lack documents they can be treated as both an "identity issue" and a "security risk".
When migration is treated as a security issues
The 2025 Border Control Law takes this a step further. In its core provisions, irregular migration is explicitly described alongside national security threats. This framing matters because it shifts how authorities see and treat people on the move: not as individuals seeking safety or a better life, but as potential dangers.
Once migration is written into law as a security threat, anyone who has crossed a border irregularly or lacks "legal status" can be seen as a legitimate target for detention on security grounds alone. Our report warns that this makes it alarmingly easy to detain almost anyone on the move, with little scrutiny of their personal story or protection needs.
International bodies have already pushed back on Bosnia's use of "national security" labels in detention. In the Al-Gertani case, the UN Human Rights Committee found that Bosnia violated its obligations by holding an Iraqi man in prolonged immigration detention without giving reasons for considering him a security threat, and by risking his family life through expulsion. The European Court of Human Rights reached similar conclusions in Al Husin v. Bosnia and Herzegovina, where a man labelled a security risk remained detained even when it had become clear that no country would accept him; the court found this violated his right to liberty.
These cases show that simply calling someone a security risk does not make it true, and that the human cost of such labels is immense.
What happens after a detention or expulsion order
Once authorities decide that you fall under one of these grounds, the legal machinery clicks into place. The Service for Foreigners Affairs should issue a decision placing you "under supervision" and, if necessary, ordering your accommodation in a specialised institution - which in practice means Lukavica.
According to the law, this decision should be communicated to you without delay, in a document that explains the reasons for your detention, the legal grounds, the date and time, and the expected duration. From the moment you receive it, you have three days to appeal a decision on supervision and eight days to appeal a removal decision. A private lawyer interviewed for the report confirmed that detainees usually receive two decisions - first an expulsion order, then a surveillance order that can be renewed every three months - but stressed that the deadlines are so short that it is very hard to prepare an effective challenge in time.
Crucially, appeals do not have an automatic suspensive effect. That means the authorities can push ahead with your removal or transfer even while your appeal is pending; your case may be decided after you are already gone. In practice, people often have to lodge appeals from inside Lukavica, with all the barriers to communication that detention entails.
How long can detention last?
The law sets an initial detention period of 90 days, which can be extended to 180 days if necessary, with a stated maximum of 18 months. For those considered "security threats", even this maximum can be exceeded, leaving people in an open-ended situation where they do not know when - or if - they will be released.
In theory, if removal proves impossible, the authorities should impose "milder measures of supervision" instead of continued detention. These could include things like regular reporting, designated residence, or other alternatives. In practice, our research and stakeholder interviews suggest that such alternatives are rarely used, and detention remains the default option.
The costs of supervision and removal are officially borne by the detainee. If you cannot pay, the law says the person who helped you enter, transit or stay in Bosnia should cover the costs. In human terms, this means that people who already have very little can leave detention saddled with bills for their own deprivation of liberty, or see money confiscated to "cover" their stay.
How people end up in Lukavica in the first place
The path to Lukavica is not always obvious from the outside. People can be taken there in several ways.
Some are apprehended directly at the border without documents and taken into custody. Others are picked up from reception or transit centres such as Blazuj or Lipa, often after police raids or "security operations" targeting so-called "illegal accommodation" or individuals deemed "security-relevant". A third group consists of people who have finished serving criminal sentences in ordinary prisons and are transferred to Lukavica at the end of their term to await deportation.
Media monitoring and SFA press releases show repeated multi-agency raids in camps and urban spaces, where people are identified as security-relevant and sent to Lukavica under supervision measures. The criteria for these designations are opaque, and testimonies indicate that people are often detained despite having tried to claim asylum or having some form of registration or documented status.
Rights and safeguards: what is promised
If you read the laws and SFA's responses to freedom-of-information requests, the picture looks reassuring. People in immigration detention are supposed to have:
The right to be informed, in a language they understand, about the reasons for their detention and about their rights and obligations.
The right to free legal aid provided by the Ministry of Justice or by organisations like Vaša prava, as well as the option to hire a private lawyer.
The right to apply for asylum in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The right to health care, including medical examinations on arrival and ongoing access to treatment, not just in emergencies.
The right to communicate with their embassy or consulate.
The right to receive visits from family, lawyers and organisations, subject to basic screening.
Detention facilities, the law states, must meet requirements arising from the Constitution and international standards for specialised institutions.
On paper, then, detention might look harsh but manageable: a place where your liberty is restricted but your basic rights are respected.
Rights and safeguards: what people describe
The reality described by detainees, lawyers and NGOs is very different. Many people report that they never received a proper explanation of why they were being held, let alone in a language they understand. Documents are often in Bosnian, and people are asked to sign them under pressure, sometimes after months in detention, without any translation or meaningful legal advice.
Interpreters, when provided, may speak English that is not the person's native language, making misunderstandings almost inevitable. Lawyers from Vaša prava and private practitioners have seen case files lacking basic justification for detention, with people labelled "illegal" or "security threats" without clear evidence. Because people are not told about their right to appeal, many miss the short deadlines; Vaša prava has had to go to court just to argue that the clock should start when they first meet the detainee, not when a decision was quietly issued.
Access to phones inside Lukavica is also tightly controlled. People may be allowed to use call points only at specific times and often need someone from outside to call in, meaning that those without networks or language skills can effectively disappear from view. Lawyers report that the phone is "always overcrowded" when it is available, because so many people are desperate for legal help.
The stakeholders: who holds the keys?
Bosnia's complex Dayton-era structure scatters responsibility across state, entity (Republika Srpska, where Lukavica sits), cantonal and district levels, with police coordinating rather than following a strict hierarchy. This setup creates gaps where accountability is harder.
Police start the process - local forces, Border Police investigating document issues or irregular stays, and the Intelligence Agency running security checks and INTERPOL queries to flag "threats". The Service for Foreigners' Affairs (SFA), with operational independence under the Security Ministry, runs Lukavica day-to-day from 16 field offices: issuing orders, paperwork, conditions, visit approvals for lawyers or monitors, and joining raids to pull people from streets or squats.
The Security Ministry oversees policy and hears appeals about detention and expulsion decisions, but those don't halt expulsions - mostly procedural. Everyone deflects: police cite policy, SFA blames resources, ministry stays hands-off. The Ombudsman Institution, as OPCAT's National Preventive Mechanism against torture, gets sporadic to monitor human rights conditions at best; SFA barred them in 2024 over a complaint.
IOM plays a major international role, funneling EU funds for “migration management”, including expanding detention infrastructure. Further, they promote their AVRR "voluntary returns" - also known as soft deportation- inside the detention centers.
NGOs struggle to monitor and help people held: Vasa Prava is the sole legal aid provider inside, three lawyers covering SFA gaps but SFA-limited. BH Women's Initiative Foundation offered psychosocial support until funding vanished.
Private actors are involved in building the inhuman detention system: EU-built Lukavica via UNIGRAD (€863k construction) and Enmos (€56k furnishings); IOM hides current contractors. Health: Kasindol clinic intakes, Sarajevo University Clinical Center emergencies.
This web turns broad laws into a locked system - time to demand clarity and humanity over control.