The government of Bosnia & Herzegovina’s Republika Srpska has adopted a bill establishing a reserve police force, claiming it aims to raise the security level in the entity, particularly in emergency situations caused by humanitarian crises.

The idea of setting up an auxiliary police force is not new. It was initially introduced by Milorad Dodik, the separatist leader of Republika Srpska, back in 2019, and was widely seen as a move towards formalising the existence of paramilitary groups in the entity.

The government said in a statement following its June 23 session that the reserve police forces would be included in operations related to natural disasters “and other unpredictable situations that occurred throughout the Republic of Srpska”.

“In addition to emergency situations caused by natural disasters and crises caused by epidemics, we have been facing the problem of the influx of illegal migrants for a long time, which, in addition to the humanitarian crisis, also causes a security crisis,” the government said in the statement on its website.

“The Ministry [of Interior] may find itself in a situation where it cannot allocate a sufficient number of its members from the regular police force for a longer period of time for these purposes, i.e. to perform the tasks of preventing and eliminating security incidents and preserving the security itself in connection with the migrant crisis, which has been continuously present for several years, because in this way internal security in Republika Srpska could be jeopardised,” it added.

Republika Srpska’s government also adopted amendments to the law on weapons and ammunition aimed to improve the control of weapons and their owners.