REUTERS-Serbia's
centers for housing migrants are completely full, the U.N. refugee agency said,
leaving more than a thousand facing a winter sleeping rough in the Balkan
country that has become a bottleneck as the European Union sealed its borders.
At least 7,000
migrants mainly from Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria are trapped in Serbia, many
spending months in a country culturally and financially ill-equipped to care
for them and where few of them want to stay.
Despite the
official closure of the so-called Balkan route, which has eased pressure on
rich nations like Germany, aid agencies estimate more than 100 new migrants are
entering Serbia every day, while only around 20 are allowed to enter Hungary -
Serbia's only neighbor in Europe's Schengen visa-free area.
About half of
those are children, and every 10th child is classified as unaccompanied, a
spokeswoman for Save the Children told Reuters at an overcrowded Belgrade
center where the international NGO encourages children to take part in
activities to help them come to terms with their trauma.
Serbia has
pledged to make 6,000 beds available and has reached almost that total but has
appealed for more help from the European Union to help it ease the crisis.
"All the
reception centers are full, full," a UNHCR spokeswoman said, adding that it
was unclear whether Serbia would make any more capacity available.
The Serbian
government agency for refugees and migration, the SRC, was not immediately
reachable for comment.
A warehouse in
central Belgrade without basic facilities has become the home of more than
1,000 men - women and children are given priority in official camps - many of
whom are reluctant to enter the system for fear their onward journey will be
hindered.
It is one of
the largest camps of its kind in a European capital. The site it occupies is
due to become part of the Belgrade Waterfront project, a new luxury development
being built by Emirati developer Eagle Hills.
"Serbia
is becoming a buffer zone, some kind of purgatory," said Rados Djurovic,
executive director of the Asylum Protection Centre, a Serbian non-profit
organization that provides legal and psychological support to displaced
persons.
Many migrants
are turning to people-traffickers to smuggle them into Hungary or Croatia, with
the short Croatian border effectively sealed and a months-long waiting list at
the barbed-wire Hungarian border.
Serbian
authorities found 77 migrants hidden in two cargo vehicles on Monday. On
Thursday, three Afghan migrants including a child died in a traffic accident in
southern Serbia. The driver, a suspected people-smuggler, fled the scene.
REUTERS
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