The Institute for Research of Genocide Canada {IGC} sent a letter to Prime Minister Hon.Justin Trudeau, Minister for Foraign Afairs Hon. Marc Garneau i Minister for Health Hon. Patty Hajdu on June 25th to express their concern “regarding the dire humanitarian situation and public health crisis unfolding in Bosnia.” IGC urged Prime Minister, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Minister for Health to allocate Canadian donated vaccines to Bosnia and Herzegovina (“Bosnia”), where they are desperately needed.
According to the press release “[a]s of the end of May, only 1.34% of the Bosnian population was vaccinated, with the vast majority of those vaccinations occurring outside of Bosnia. This is among the lowest vaccination rates in the world. The Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center reported that Bosnia’s mortality rate during the last wave was approximately 4.4%, making it the ninth highest mortality rate in the world.”
Canada already distributed a number of vaccines abroad, but Bosnia unfortunately did not find itself on the list. The Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, announced at the summit of the seven most developed countries in the world that his government will donate 13 million vaccines to the rest of the world! We need to act without delay to ensure that Bosnia gets its fair share of these vaccines!
Most of the vaccines received by the Bosnian government so far have been donated. Only on June 10th, did the Bosnian government announce a pending order of vaccines from China (500,000) and Russia. It is not clear when these vaccines will be delivered, but it is clear that they won’t be enough to vaccinate the country.
