Serbia warns opening of police headquarters in Presevo

Serbia's Minister of Internal Affairs, Bratislav Gashic, announced that in the coming days a police headquarters will be opened in Presevo, south of Serbia, and that actions in the border area with Northern Macedonia and Bulgaria will be intensified.

Presevo is the predominantly Albanian municipality and together with Bujanovac and Medvedja, where Albanians also live, are known as Presevo Valley.

Gashic said police “are doing everything to curb irregular migration and discourage and arrest all human traffickers”, the Serbian Interior Ministry announced on November 30th.

The MPB members will take all measures to prevent the irregular transition of migrants to our country. We will stay in this area, but even in the north of the country, until we fully resolve this problem”, Gashiq said at Bulgaria's regional border police centre.

Serbian police in late October of 2023 intensified the actions following the shooting in the border town of Horgos with Hungary, where three immigrants were killed and another wounded.

This event took place after almost daily police reports of conducting checks at various locations, sequencing weapons and ammunition, and of “zhtin” of hundreds of people from informal camps towards the Waiting Centre of Serbia's Commissioner for Refugees.

Reports of violence and armed conflicts between trafficking groups in northern 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 extreme right-wing organisations.

Serbia is located on the so-called “Balkan Route”, which, despite sieges, surveillance cameras and joint border patrols, is the second most active course of refugees, according to European Border Guard Agency reports (FRONTEX).

According to estimates by the Nongovernmental Centre for Aids and Asylum seekers, there are currently about 5,000 refugees in Serbia.

According to the State Commissioner for Refugees report from September, about 2,300 people have been sheltered in 16 state camps, mainly from Afghanistan, Syria, Morocco and Pakistan.