Migrants stuck in informal camp on Serbia-Croatia border

More than a hundred migrants are living in a makeshift camp in Šid along the border between Croatia and Serbia, after Serbian authorities closed an official reception center in the town.

The camp, which is next to a train station, is being called “the Jungle”, a reference to the makeshift camp in Calais, France, where thousands of migrants were living at one point. The French camp was cleared by the government in October 2016.

Since autumn 2016, when the Balkan countries closed their borders, over 100 migrants, many of them Afghans, have been stranded in Serbia. Many have been seeking sanctuary on tracks and in an abandoned factory nearby, the Paris based World Crunch reported. Many of the migrants are trying to reach either Croatia or Bosnia from the camp.

A 24 year-old Pakistani national, who is stranded in the makeshift camp in Šid, paid more than 5,000 USD to people smugglers to flee the Taliban, but still wasn’t been able to cross into Croatia.

“I have been here for five months and ten days, but I want to go to Croatia because the smugglers say it is better than Bosnia. I am here with my cousin but this could be our last night here, God willing,” he said.

Every migrant in the camp has experienced being pushed back from the border at least once. Some of them, who have been stranded in the camp for over a year, try to cross into Croatia once a week.

A report by the NGO Refugees Aid Serbia suggests that 33 percent of migrants who attempt to cross into Croatia are pushed back, compared to 31 percent of those who try to make their way to Hungary.

“Border police often commit acts of violence against these people,” said Stephanie Moissaing from Doctors without Borders in Serbia. “They cause psychological and physical injuries which could make the victims more aggressive,” she added.

“The data tells us that the number of people entering Serbia isn’t decreasing, with 456 arriving in April and 250 in the first two weeks of May,” said Sara Ristic of Info Park, a Belgrade-based organization that helps migrants arriving in the city.

“The outflow towards Bosnia is a new phenomenon, as well as the arrival of more Iranians overstaying their tourist visas and other migrants expelled here from Bulgaria, Hungary, and Croatia,” she said.

According to a report by the Bosnian Ministry of Defence, of the 2,280 migrants who have been found trying to cross the border in 2018, 1,967 have been detained by the authorities.

TMP – 06/08/2018

Photo caption: Migrants wait for food from a charity at a barracks in Belgrade, Serbia. February 2017.