Serbia's accommodation for refugees and migrants is now full to capacity and people smugglers are exploiting rising desperation among those seeking passage to western Europe, the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) has warned.
Some 7,000 refugees and migrants are now stuck in Serbia, more than 1,000 of whom are sleeping rough, mostly in the capital Belgrade. More than 3,000 of the total number are under the age of 18, said Mirjana Milenkovski, a spokeswoman for the UNHCR in Serbia.
"With sub-zero temperatures now in Serbia, we are very concerned that no refugees be left out in the open," she told The Irish Times.
Ms Milenkovski said 49 per cent of people in Serbia's state facilities were from Afghanistan, 19 per cent from Iraq and 10 per cent from Syria – war-ravaged countries whose citizens have the best chance of gaining refugee status. Other migrants with less hope of protection are from Pakistan, Iran and north African states.
Serbia has announced plans to open one more accommodation centre in the coming days, as scores of people continue to arrive in the country each month from Bulgaria and Macedonia, but are blocked from moving on through Hungary and Croatia.
Serbia and its neighbours on the so-called Balkan route officially closed their borders to asylum seekers in March, as the EU sought to stem a refugee crisis that brought more than a million people to the bloc in 2015.
Smugglers
“The UNHCR has long said that when borders are closed for people seeking international protection, smugglers take control of the situation,” Ms Milenkovski said.
“So although the Serbian authorities introduced joint military and police patrols at the borders to curb smuggling . . . smugglers are finding different ways to operate and get people through. The Balkan route is officially closed, but people are still trickling through.”
Police across the Balkans frequently find migrants hidden in cars and trucks, and some smugglers take great risks to evade capture.
Three Afghans were killed and 11 other migrants injured when the car they were crammed into smashed into a crash barrier on a road in southern Serbia. One child was killed and five were hurt, while some of the adults suffered extremely serious injuries, including to limbs that were later amputated.
Ignored pleas
The driver of the vehicle fled and is yet to be caught. Serbian media quoted a survivor of the crash, an Iraqi, saying that the driver had ignored their pleas to slow down.
“People are so desperate now that they are accepting anything that seems like a solution,” said Ms Milenkovski.
“The people sleeping rough in Belgrade and at the border with Hungary are so desperate and feel they have nothing left to lose, and will do anything – and believe anything that smugglers tell them – to reach a destination country,” she added.
The UNHCR has also received reports from around the region that suggest countries along the Balkan route are pushing more refugees and migrants back across borders, in contravention of their international obligations to people seeking protection.
