Bosnian hunger strikers demand release to homes

More people appear to be joining a hunger strike in Bosnia over alleged failure by the authorities to protect them from the new coronavirus while forcing them to quarantine in government-run facilities.

According to hunger strikers, close to 80 people currently held in quarantine in a hotel in the central town of Zenica started refusing food Monday and were soon joined by 150 others who have been quarantined in a student dormitory in Sarajevo.

Hundreds of Bosnians who rushed home amid the coronavirus pandemic were ordered to quarantine in those and other facilities for anywhere between 14 and 28 days.

Hunger strikers said they were refusing food to pressure authorities into allowing them to self-isolate in their homes.

Here, we all mix in hallways and if one of us is infected, we will all get infected, Mirsad Susic, a hunger striker in Zenica, told the Associated Press by phone.

Susic claimed the the people who are currently quarantined in Zenica, some of them for over two weeks, have yet to be tested for COVID-19.