Are we facing biggest migrant crisis in Serbia since 2015? This is where most of the refugees will come from

Photo: MUP RS

The Czech Republic, which currently presides over the EU, has proposed suspending the visa-free regime for Serbia and Albania, in order to reduce the number of illegal migrants who come to the bloc via the Western Balkans.

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92 migrants stripped of their clothes were found on the border between Greece and Turkey. According to Greek reports, Turkish authorities forced them to board three vehicles that drove them to the border, while the migrants testified that they were forced to undress before boarding.

Ankara says that these are false reports that Athens wants to sling mud on Turkey. The United Nations are calling for an investigation.

While Turkey and Greece are accusing each other for forcibly pushing migrants across the border they share, along with stories about inhumane transport, there is also the one of which route migrants are taking and how they reach the countries of the European Union.

There is the accusation that Belgrade is contributing to the increase of migrants that come to the EU.

"That's because especially Austria and Germany are recording an increased number of people who come to Serbia by plane, and then illegally arrive at their accommodation facilities and seek asylum there. This is about thousands of people, who then block the system, because accommodation capacities in both Austria and Germany are overcrowded," Rados Djurovic from the Asylum Protection Center told RTS.

An increase in the number of refugees coming from Ukraine is also expected in the coming period, says Djurovic and and adds that it's impossible to accept all these people in an adequate manner.

That is why Serbia has been asked to harmonize its visa policy with the policy of Brussels, which the president of Serbia recently promised to do.

"That's not inhumane, it doesn't mean that someone will now be intercepted at the border, as is the case in most of Europe, be beaten and pushed from one country to another, but a migration route that leads from different countries that are in a difficult situation will be closed," says lawyer Nikola Kovacevic.

He believes that Serbia will align its visa policy with the EU, given that this already happened between 2016 to 2018, when dozens of planes were arriving from Tehran every month with Iranians who allegedly came as tourists, and very quickly they ended up in Croatia, Romania, Hungary.

The Czech Republic, as the chairman of the European Union, proposed to suspend the visa-free regime for Serbia and Albania in order to reduce the number of illegal migrants who come through the Western Balkans.

According to official data, more than 80,000 officially registered migrants entered Serbia by October 4. Nobody knows the number of illegal ones.

(Telegraf.rs)