UPDATES FROM THE FIELD (after the shooting in the end of October and subsequent police raids)

It has been more than a month now that there is a form of state of emergency in Serbia regarding people from the refugee population. Since the latest armed conflict between organized criminal groups of smugglers in the north of Serbia on October 27th in which three persons are reported to had lost their lives, the police and gendarmerie forces of Serbia have conducted a series of police raids in the informal settlements during which all refugees are forcibly transferred to camps, without much of particular targeting of persons suspected to be involved in the smuggling. Sometimes, the police forces would raid one squat four times in a day, as we have been told by refugees in the field since.

Klikaktiv has strongly condemned the smugglers being in control of the squats as was the case up till now, but it seems that the police response of forcibly relocating all refugees from the settlements will not bring long term results. There needs to be proper identification of individuals suspected to be involved in the smuggling operations and their prosecution in accordance with the law of Serbia, while the refugees in the squats need to have access to adequate accommodation, asylum procedure and free legal aid.

The changes we have seen in the squats after they had been raided are striking. In one of the squats near Sombor the abandoned house where up to 400 refugees used to sleep rough had been burned. Similar fate has been brought upon other squats in the area - they have been demolished to a degree that makes it impossible to set up an informal settlement in them again.

A few refugees that managed to escape the police raids stated that the demolition was conducted by the Serbian police officers, while some of the refugees also suffered injuries from beatings with a police stick.

The escalation of shootings and subsequent police raids could have been prevented if Serbia had had a strategy in place to prevent the growth and abuse of power by organized criminal groups of smugglers, who had come to a point of completely neglecting existing law and clashed among themselves over control of territories.

At this moment, one can draw a conclusion that a massive police operation to fight smuggling is a necessity, but during these actions it cannot be done on the expense of safety and human rights of people who are not part of the smuggling networks, which the majority of refugees currently strandled in Serbia.