THE European Union warned Bosnia today that thousands of refugees face a winter without shelter unless its government acts — though the bloc has itself been accused of complicity in illegal pushbacks and violence against migrants at the Croatian border.

Thousands of people have been sleeping rough in makeshift tent camps or abandoned houses with no facilities.

The closure of a camp in Bihac will make the situation worse, the EU says.

The EU’s commissioners for foreign policy, migration and enlargement said that “the migration situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina is alarming.

Over 3,300 refugees and migrants will find themselves without access to basic shelter and services in the country with the imminent closure of the facility in Lipa,” a temporary camp set up in the summer.

“We urge the authorities, once again, to rise above political considerations and reopen the centre in Bira and open the facility in Ciljuge near Tuzla,” they said.

Bosnia and Herzegovina is administratively split into two entities, the Serb-majority Republika Srpska and the Bosniak-majority Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The two are currently on bad terms and are declining to co-operate on sheltering refugees.

The EU said it had made funding available to address the refugees’ needs, but those in the camps have reported being illegally returned to Bosnia from within the EU, as well as being met with violence as they try to cross into EU member Croatia.

Last week the Left group of MEPs in the European Parliament published a “black book” documenting illegal pushbacks of refugees across the EU’s borders.

At the launch German Die Linke MEP Cornelia Ernst said she was “shocked by endless accounts of merciless, sadistic and degrading violence” against migrants by EU member states.