Illegal Chinese workers, death and a construction site that is still not closed

A dirt road leads to a construction site the size of about 200 football fields. A huge solar power plant is under construction on Komanje Brdo in Stolac, billed as a major investment in renewable energy, with a total investment of approximately 100 million marks. As announced, the construction of this area should become the largest photovoltaic facility in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH).

Here, workers from China are installing solar panels. One of them fell on a Chinese worker in June 2025, who succumbed to his injuries. His death exposed 71 workers who were working illegally.

The detector spoke to workers who journalists found at the construction site in October.

“I am not familiar with the information about the deceased gentleman,” said Liu Yi.

He works for Ailin Technology and Industry, a company registered in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but which cooperates with the Chinese company Norinco. That company is running the project in Komanja Brdo and is on the blacklist of the United States of America.

 

As Detektor was told by the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Herzegovina-Neretva Canton (HNK), the deceased worker was killed while standing next to a forklift, after a pallet with a load fell on him.

The police sent a report to the Prosecutor's Office of the HHK, which opened a case. The investigation has been ongoing for several months.

Labor inspectors determined that the fatal accident occurred because the load was not secured during lifting.

In a document provided to Detektor by the Federal Inspection, it was determined that the deceased worker had the status of a visitor.

The detector revealed the identity of the deceased worker and determined that Wang Xin Bo did not have an approved "D" visa, which allows entry and stay in BiH for a period of 180 days within one year, as well as that he did not have an approved temporary residence in the country. In their written response, the Service for Affairs with Foreigners stated that Xin Bo did not even have a registered address in BiH, which was his obligation.

Rade Kovač, Head of the Operational Support Sector at the Service for Foreigners' Affairs, said that inspectors went to the scene after the accident and found over 140 people.

“Some of the 71 people at that moment were caught only on the basis of exactly what I said – visa-free stay, with a valid residence permit. And in accordance with the Law on Foreigners, sanctions will be imposed on them, or rather, cancellations of that visa-free stay, because they were caught working in Bosnia and Herzegovina,” said Kovač.

A total of 71 Chinese citizens will have to leave BiH, according to Kovač. The inspection resulted in a fine of nearly 40,000 marks for the responsible companies from Komanja Brdo – Aurora Solar, Norinco, Ailin Technology and Industry, added Kovač.

None of the companies agreed to speak with Detektor.

Nornco was first placed on the sanctions list in 2003 for allegedly selling goods related to Iranian missiles, and in 2020 for its ties to the Chinese military. Detektor saw that, despite the sanctions, the company has active accounts in two banks in Republika Srpska – Atos Bank and Nova Banka. They did not respond to Detektor's inquiry.

The competent Banking Agency of Republika Srpska also did not respond to journalists' questions.

It was with representatives of Norinac that the foundation stone on Komanja Brdo was laid earlier this year by the mayor of Stolac, Stjepan Bošković.

The project has been surrounded by controversy since the beginning, as an investigation is underway into the sale of state-owned land to private companies.

Nikola Bačić, editor-in-chief of the local portal Hercegovina.info, said that they had tried several times to obtain information about the state-owned land, but received vague answers that they did not ask for.

“How suddenly state land was turned into land owned by the Municipality, or the City of Stolac, and how it was then sold overnight to that private investor, which the City of Stolac boasted about doubling its budget. Practically, I think seven million marks were mentioned in the budget estimate of the City of Stolac,” said Bačić.

The Stolac City Administration, the mayor, and the HDZ party did not respond to Detektor’s inquiry.

 

Detektor had the opportunity to see documentation confirming that Komanje Brdo and other locations in Stolac were owned by the Stolac Municipality. The Attorney General’s Office had previously requested that the property be returned to the state. When Detektor called, they did not respond to that institution.

Two workers from China spoke to Detektor at the construction site and said that the company Ailin Technology and Industry paid for their travel from China and provided them with accommodation that they were satisfied with.

"All colleagues who do not have a work visa, they are in the process of obtaining a work visa and do not work. After obtaining a work visa, we will assign them to their workplaces," said worker Zhang Xiaolei.

Residents of Stolac told Detektor that they see Chinese workers, and that they used to live in the town in private houses.

According to the ranking of the international human rights organization Human Rights Watch, the authorities in China have been labeled as authoritarian and repressive year after year. The ruling Communist Party of China maintains strict control over all aspects of life, activists warned.

Last year, BiH recorded a 26 percent increase in work permits for foreigners. The largest number of work permits were issued in the construction industry. China is among the countries whose workers recorded the largest increase in work permits issued in BiH.

Emir Prcanović, executive director of the Association “Vaša prava BiH”, says that every worker must enjoy the rights provided for by local labor law.

It has been noted, he said, that many employers do not register workers in the unified registry system as taxpayers.

"The appropriate number of workers, i.e. the workforce, is imported, and then they are not given or they are given an employment contract that is most often violated even at the start, and here on the other hand no obligations are paid to the state. These people are a de facto classic example of illegal work, I would say," Prcanović said.

Unregulated residence status of Chinese citizens, without the right to health care and appeals - was a scenario that also happened in neighboring Serbia.

Danilo Ćurčić from the non-governmental organization A 11 - the initiative for economic and social rights in Serbia, which followed the entire case, told Detektor that the way in which Chinese workers come to Serbia is non-transparent.

 

As he explained, the situation is not much better even today.

The US-based NGO China Labor Watch has been working to protect the rights of Chinese workers around the world for 20 years.

They warn that workers are often restricted in their freedom of movement, forced to work and live on their employers’ premises, and are prohibited from leaving their area or have numerous conditions they must meet before they can leave.

“They are promised certain working conditions or wages before they go abroad, but when they arrive at their destination, they find out that they are earning much less than they were promised,” Elanie Lu from the organization told Detector.

As she explained, there have been cases of workers working for 100 days without a single day off.

“There are also delays in salary payments – workers who have not received their salaries for two, three, even six months. And even when they return to China, they often still have not been paid the full amount,” Lu said.

Some companies, she added, are taking advantage of the fact that Chinese citizens can travel to certain countries without a visa or with tourist visas. China’s economy has been slowing for years, and high labor costs have forced many factories to move out of China.

“Due to the general situation in China, many citizens are looking for better opportunities and job prospects, so they are going to work in Chinese factories or facilities abroad, including those under the ‘Belt and Road’ initiative. They can earn about one and a half to two times more abroad than they could in China,” Lu said.

The initiative she referred to involves 65 countries and is China’s largest initiative of strategic importance. It involves large-scale infrastructure projects abroad, through which China is exerting global influence.

Emir Prcanović from the organization “Vaša prava BiH” assessed that large projects without the care of the competent institutions can jeopardize the lives of both local and foreign workers in the country.

“I wonder how it is possible that on the territory of BiH you have 70, 80 foreigners who you find on a construction site, of which 10, 12, five are registered. All the others are (there) illegally. It is impossible for that construction site to continue its work. Especially when things like this fatal case happen,” concluded Prcanović.

 

The detector also sent questions about the case to the Chinese Embassy in Sarajevo, but no response was received by the time of publication of this text.

 

 

 

 

The death of a Chinese worker on the construction site of a photovoltaic power plant near Stolac has drawn the attention of the Bosnian public and institutions to this construction site. Despite the fact that the competent authorities have determined that a significant number of workers employed on this construction site were employed illegally, the construction site continues to operate and employs foreign nationals. Judging by the findings of the competent authorities, in addition to violating domestic legislation, respect for the rights of (foreign) workers in accordance with the positive legal regulations of Bosnia and Herzegovina is also questionable.

A special problem is the fact that behind the project being built near Stolac is a Chinese company that is on the US blacklist. Like other Chinese projects in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but also in other countries of the Western Balkans, this case is also a common business practice of Chinese companies in the region. The main characteristics are the lack of transparency of the project, but also the violation of domestic legislation. Unfortunately, it took the death of a Chinese worker for the public to become more interested in this construction site and to identify numerous omissions and violations of Bosnian legislation.