The Minister of Internal Affairs of Serbia, Bratislav Gašić, announced that in the coming days a police headquarters will be opened in Preshevo, in the south of Serbia, and that actions will be intensified in the border area with North Macedonia and Bulgaria.
Preshevo is a municipality predominantly inhabited by Albanians, and together with Bujanovac and Medvegja, where Albanians also reside, they are known as the Preshevo Valley.
Gašić stated that the police are “doing everything to stop irregular migration and to deter and arrest all human traffickers”, as announced by the Serbian Ministry of Internal Affairs on November 30.
“Members of the Ministry of Internal Affairs will take all measures to prevent the irregular entry of immigrants into our country. We will stay in this area, but also in the northern part of the country, until we completely solve this problem,” said Gašić at the regional border police center towards Bulgaria.
In late October 2023, Serbian police intensified actions after shootings in the town of Horgoš on the border with Hungary, where three immigrants were killed and another injured.
This incident occurred following almost daily police reports of conducting checks in various locations, confiscating weapons and ammunition, and “relocating” hundreds of people from unofficial camps to the Serbian Refugee Commissariat Reception Centers.
Reports of violence and armed conflicts between trafficking groups in north Serbia have become more frequent since the summer of 2022, and activists have warned that refugees are victims of both smugglers and police raids and right-wing extremist organizations.
Serbia is located on the so-called “Balkan Route”, which, despite fences, surveillance cameras, and joint border patrols, remains the second most active route for refugees, according to reports from the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (FRONTEX).
According to estimates from the non-governmental Center for Assistance to Migrants and Asylum Seekers, there are currently about 5,000 refugees in Serbia.
According to the report of the State Refugee Commissariat from September, around 2,300 people, mainly from Afghanistan, Syria, Morocco, and Pakistan, are housed in 16 state camps.
