AN INCREASE IN NUMBER OF ATTEMPTS TO CROSS FROM SERBIA TO BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA AND CROATIA
In the last two months people on the move in the north of Serbia, particularly those sleeping rough in squats in the Serbian – Hungarian border area, is decreasing. According to what the refugees shared with us during our field trips, as well as from conversations with colleagues from other humanitarian organizations, we have learnt that the number of people on the move who enter Serbia either from Bulgaria or from North Macedonia has remained the same, or has even increased compared to the same period in 2022. That is how we learnt that refugees are more often trying to continue their journey from Serbia by going to Bosnia and Herzegovina, and in a smaller percentage, to Croatia.
The main reason is a financial one. People are forced to spend ever higher amounts of money to reach Serbia in the first place. Once in Serbia most are left with no financial means, while the smugglers extort incredibly high amounts to take them to Hungary, having been those who control this route for years now, and the route is still the shortest way to EU member states which the refugees are trying to reach looking for peace and stability.
Our team has visited hotspots in Serbia near the border crossings to Bosnia and Herzegovina - the city of Loznica, the town of Banja Koviljača, border crossing Šepak, Mali Zvornik, Ljubovija and Bratunac – in order to locare potential locations of informal settlements (squats) where people on the move might be sleeping rough, as well as to make an estimation on the number and the needs of those trying to cross this particular border. In one of the visited locations, a few refugees shared with us that the „game“ to Hungary was much more expensive at the moment, and that was the reason why they had chosen to try and cross over to Bosnia. They still had to pay the smugglers to do so, but the price is much lower.
When trying to cross the Serbian – Bosnian border, some refugees and migrants use boats which they take at different spots of the Drina river night after night. Yet the river is a significantly dangerous obstacle and the people are constantly in the risk of drowning in the river. The risk is particularly high for those trying to cross the river at night, or those who have young children with them. Some others try to walk over the bridges over Drina at night, while others try to hide under the bridges’ construction which are also extremely dangerous as at any point they can crack and the person would fall into the fast river stream.
There is a high number of push backs at this border as well – to give an example of a group of men from Afghanistan who stated they had entered Bosnia via one of the bridges, before being forcibly returned by the Bosnian border police and handed over to the Serbian one. The Serbian police at the border crossing Šepak had beaten them – kicking them and slapping them even while they were lying on the ground showing no resistance, before letting them leave.
The refugees keep arrivals and the majority of people Klikaktiv had served, more than 73%, come from Afghanistan and Syria (the two countries who had been extremely unsafe for a while now), while at the same time the humanitarian response of the EU states is lacking, with the EU designing an openly hostile policy which sends thousands of people at the hands of smugglers, with an uncertain and unsafe future ahead of them.
More about the situation in the field and the trends can be found in our latest report available here.