BELGRADE: Serbia is to launch a joint police and army patrols to strengthen its borders against migrants, Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic said on Saturday.
He warned that his country would not become a parking lot for refugees, as by Saturday a total of 2,669 migrants reached Serbia, of which 85% were from Afghanistan and Pakistan along with some Syrians.
The number of migrants blocked in Serbia has grown constantly since Hungary, its northern neighbour, introduced tough new measures aimed at stopping migrants. “We will form a joint army and police team to protect our border,” Vucic told reporters, while giving no details of how many troops would be involved.
The prime minister warned that migrants entering Serbia without documents and not seeking asylum would be evicted within 30 days. Serbia could only accommodate 6,000 to 7,000 migrants. Vucic urged the European Union to find a global solution to the tide of migrants triggering Europe’s worst crisis since the Second World War.
He warned that Serbia would not be a parking lot for Afghans and Pakistanis arriving from EU countries, since no one wants them. Serbia lies on the Balkan route crossed by hundreds of thousands of migrants from the Middle East, Asia and Africa since last summer on their way to Western Europe.
Although the route was effectively shut down in March, migrants have however continued to cross the region in smaller numbers, often with the help of smugglers. Serbian authorities had recently said that 102,000 migrants had been registered since the start of the year – more than 500 a day.
