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When the Balkan corridor closed in March 2016, Afghans trying to reach Europe found themselves stranded, once again at the mercy of smugglers’ networks. Many are still slowly making their way towards the outer fringes of the European Union at the Serbian-Hungarian border. Almost everyone transits through Belgrade, which has become an important hub for the Afghan-linked smuggling networks. In this dispatch, the last in a series of three, Martine van Bijlert and Jelena Bjelica discuss the nature of these networks and describe how the situation for many Afghans currently in transit has become increasingly desperate.

Part I: The opening and closing of the Balkan corridor

Part 2: In transit through Serbia

Part 3: The re-emergence of smugglers along the Balkan route

 

The ‘Afghan Park’ in Belgrade

In June 2016, AAN researchers visited Belgrade in Serbia where they interviewed Afghans on their way to Europe, about their experiences as well as on the mechanics of the smugglers’ networks. The Afghan travellers were easy to find. Most spend their days in an area now referred to as the ‘Afghan Park.’ Here, they sit around on benches or on the grass, watching passers-by (while marvelling at the different breeds of dogs Belgradians walk). They stand in line for ad hoc distributions, they chat, sleep and wait for word from their smugglers.

The area is in downtown Belgrade, in the historical Savamala neighbourhood, close to the river Sava. This is where the main refugee aid organisations are active, including the Asylum Information Centre, Miksalište refugee centre and Info Park (see this second dispatch for details). The area’s epicentre lies between two small parks next to Belgrade’s central bus station. The park directly adjacent to the bus station is where many Afghan and Syrian migrants are dropped off after having crossed the Bulgarian-Serbian or Macedonian-Serbian border, often in minibuses organised by smugglers. (Some volunteers called this the ‘Syrian Park’, although Afghans, Pakistanis and people from other countries spend their days here too.) The main attraction in this park is the Info Park wooden shack, run by the philanthropic organisation Foundation B92, which provides free Wifi, a charging station for mobile phones and, increasingly, free meals and other aid.

The second park – the ‘Afghan Park’ – is situated across a busy road behind a covered parking garage in front of the University’s Faculty of Economics. The main attraction in this park seems to be a small hamburger kiosk in the corner, where smugglers hold court in the late afternoons and early evenings. The park is also the place from where onward travel to the Hungarian border is organised. According to one volunteer, Afghans arriving in Dimitrovgrad (the first city after the Bulgarian border) often ask where the ‘Afghan Park’ is. Or, in the words of one young man from Jalalabad:

I was told about the Afghan Park when I was still in Bulgaria. So when we arrived here, we just sat down and waited. A person came and asked “are you in the group of so-and-so?” We said, yes. Then he called someone and told him “they have arrived.”

Another nearby hub of activity is a telephone shop, or PCO, very much like the ones that used to operate in Pakistani and Afghan cities. The PCO appears to play an important role in the communication between migrants and the original smugglers in Afghanistan, with migrants phoning in to find out whether they are leaving or not. Two restaurants that played an important role in connecting migrants and smugglers have recently been closed (which could explain the high level of ‘open’ activity in the park).

According to a volunteer at Info Park, there has been a noted increase in the presence of smugglers in the parks since March 2016, which coincided with the closure of the Balkan corridor. (For details on the policies that led to the opening and closure of the corridor, see the first dispatch here; for an explanation of how this played out in Serbia see the second dispatch here.) “Afghans have their own networks here,” he said. “They run the smuggling for their compatriots from Belgrade to Hungary.”

Interviews by AAN showed that the networks’ reach was even wider, with most people having had every part of their journey arranged for them by smugglers residing in Afghanistan.

Routes, travels and hardships

Most of the Afghan migrants are young men who often set out alone and who are referred to as mojarad (a word usually used to describe a bachelor). By the time they arrive in Serbia, many of them have teamed up with others and are travelling in pairs or small groups. Some appeared to have been adopted by families, particularly families without young adult men of their own. This may have been for protection, but it is also possible the families meant to help the young men by allowing them to pose as relatives, so they can cross the Hungarian border, where currently only families – and very few – are let through.

Around half of the Afghans AAN spoke to (either in the park, in the adjoining streets or at the Miksalište centre) had left Afghanistan, or one of its neighbouring countries, when the Balkan route was still open, or just opening up. Most of them had taken the Aegean route, by boat from Turkey to one of the Greek islands, counting on the fact that they would be let into Macedonia and then transported by bus and train onwards into the EU. When the Balkan corridor closed in March 2016, they found themselves stranded. Most of them had been travelling for a long time when AAN spoke to them – generally between five to twelve months – and had only just managed to make their way into Serbia.

A young man from Herat who was travelling with his wife (they had lived in Iran for a long time and started their journey from Tehran) recounted:

We paid 2,000 Euros per person to come to Greece and then 2,000 Euros per person to get to Hungary. We have been travelling for eight months. … We arrived in Greece by boat; we were on the boat for seven hours. It was a boat for children to play in, not a proper one. We really gambled with our lives. Later, a boat with 60 people on it was lost. Four relatives of one of my friends died. … Three days before we arrived in Idomeni [on the Greek-Macedonian border] they closed the border to Afghans. For 20 days it was still open for Arabs, but not for us. We stayed in tents on the Greek border before we could travel on.

A couple who said they had travelled directly from Kunduz (but who had also clearly lived in Iran for several years) were similarly unlucky. (1) The young wife told AAN:

Two days after we arrived in Greece, the border with Macedonia was closed. We spent a long time in Greece, but we didn’t want to stay there. The camp was in the ‘jungle’ [ie forest or untended land]. It was in the vicinity of the capital city, but not that close. The children went to school, but there was no work for the adults. So my husband went to the city to find a smuggler. He found a Bangladeshi who spoke English. We walked for four days. We travelled from Salonika [Thessaloniki] to Macedonia, from Macedonia to Preševo [in Serbia, across the Macedonian border]. In Preševo we boarded a bus to Belgrade. We hope to go to Austria or France now.

The other people AAN spoke to had left more recently, after the closure of the Balkan corridor. Almost all of them had taken the “land route” through Bulgaria. This had been a secondary route when the Balkan corridor was still open, used by small groups of Afghans, Pakistanis and Iranians, whose journeys had been organised by compatriots residing in their countries of origin (see here). When the Balkan corridor closed, smuggling networks were already in place and able to accommodate the growing demand for travel through Bulgaria.

One Afghan family that had left from Tehran, where they had lived for the past eleven years, ended up taking both routes after they were separated at the Iranian-Turkish border. The mother, along with her daughter and son, managed to cross the border and travel onwards across the Aegean Sea. Meanwhile the father and another (adolescent) daughter were detained by the Iranian authorities. By the time they were deported back to Afghanistan, the rest of the family had already reached Germany via the Balkan corridor. Many months later, father and daughter had now finally reached Belgrade, via Iran, Turkey and Bulgaria, and were hoping to travel onwards to Germany and to join the others.

Although almost all journeys had been hard, people’s greatest complaints were regarding the behaviour of the Bulgarian police, who were said to beat migrants (2) and to go through their belongings, taking money and other valuables, even when well hidden. The aforementioned father told AAN “The police in Bulgaria were the worst. They took 250 Euros and a bracelet from my daughter. They didn’t find our phones because my daughter hid them [in her bra]. But when the police found my charger, they asked for my phone. So I gave them two very old phones.”

A young man from Herat who had been living in Tehran but had left around three months ago, had tried to get to Bulgaria several times: “Three times I was taken into Bulgaria and three times I was sent back. It’s a business – for the taxis, but also for the [Bulgarian] police. The police take our mobiles and our money. Now I don’t have a mobile anymore. They even took my notebook with all the phone numbers.” (3)

After three attempts at entering Bulgaria and another unsuccessful attempt via Greece, (4) he decided he had had enough:

I said I am not going anymore. But the smuggler persuaded me; he said “I will take you all the way to Germany.” So we went again, by truck, with about 30 people. We were dropped just before the [Bulgarian] border and walked until morning. Then we slept in the forest until night. When it was dark, we started moving again. After two or three hours we arrived at a crossroads. There was a policeman with binoculars and he saw us, he saw 30 people sitting in the forest. So the police came to get us. That night we were taken back to Turkey.

There we walked for five hours. We wanted to get a car back to Istanbul, but the ‘jello-ro’ [smuggler’s helper] said “no, we are trying it again.” We said that we had no food. He said a car would bring some. At around 23:00 a car came and brought some biscuits. We ate everything, because otherwise the [Bulgarian] police would take it. After that we walked for two hours. Then the smuggler called from Istanbul and said that it was now too late. So we walked back for two hours. We slept in the forest until the next night. Then we finally crossed the border.

A few interviewees mentioned that the behaviour of the Bulgarian police was much better in the presence of German or Austrian police officers (who had presumably been seconded to the Bulgarian border patrols). A partially disabled young man from Laghman told AAN, “It took us twelve days to get from Istanbul to Belgrade. We were deported from Bulgaria twice. The Bulgarian police stole our money – but they didn’t do it when the German and Austrian police officers were present.”

Arrangements with smugglers

From the interviews it emerged that most travellers had made all arrangements with a principal smuggler in Afghanistan, either directly while still in Afghanistan or through an intermediary while en route. One of the volunteers at Miksalište commented somewhat sarcastically, “There is an ‘unofficial Afghan Ambassador’ here [in Serbia]. He hangs around at the coffee shop in the park. He introduces people to smugglers.”

The money for the journey was usually paid to the principal smuggler, who then enlisted networks along the route for the actual travel arrangements. These networks included local coordinators who organised the different legs of the journey; local transporters and accommodation providers; local mobile guides (who either travelled with the migrants or met up with them at specific junctions) and local representatives who re-established contact with the migrants once they had arrived at their next destination. Most of these local networks were still made up of Afghans.

The role of the principal smuggler seemed to be quite hands-on. Many interviewees described how they were in regular contact, either directly or through his representatives, at crucial junctions of the journey – to confirm that they had safely arrived, to organise the release of money or to be handed over to the next local network.

From the interviews, different types of arrangements emerged. At the top end is what one of the Afghans described as a ‘guaranteed’ journey. In this arrangement the full price is negotiated and often paid beforehand. The principal smuggler then organises the whole route and guarantees that the traveller will arrive at his or her intended destination. The ‘guaranteed’ trip is the preferred mode for families and for those with more money to spend. It is financially the least risky arrangement, particularly if the payment is conditional and in instalments.

However, those who made arrangements while the Balkan ‘humanitarian corridor’ was still open, and who had counted on only needing to reach the Greek-Macedonian border, suddenly found that the original agreement would no longer get them to Europe as there were now many more illegal border crossings involved than originally envisaged. They found themselves renegotiating the terms of their agreement, paying additional money or looking for a new smuggler.

The young man from Jalalabad, for instance, explained to AAN how his family had found him a good smuggler in Nangarhar. They had paid 8,000 US dollars per person for him and his cousin (his cousin’s two young sons had been half price) for a ‘guaranteed’ trip. The smuggler had organised every leg of their journey, as they were moved from country to country. He said his family had paid the whole amount ahead of time, but that he had been confident the smuggler would not abandon or trick him: “Everyone in Nangarhar knows him, they all know his brother. My family would find him [if he tricked me].” Now he needed to pay more. He estimated that the remaining trip to France would cost him another 4,000 US dollars per person.

Others had opted to pay their trip in instalments. The daughter from the family who had been split at the Iranian-Turkish border, for instance, explained how they had paid after every border that had been crossed: 1,500 US dollars per person from Kabul to Istanbul; 1,400 US dollars from Istanbul to Bulgaria; and 1,100 US dollars from Bulgaria to Serbia. (5) They were now looking for a smuggler in Belgrade who would take them to the Hungarian border.

Another woman, whose family had left recently, said that even though they had made arrangements all the way to Austria, they had now asked the smuggler to only take them to the Hungarian border, where they would try to cross legally at the Horgoš or Kelebija border crossings (currently used as transit zones). “It is just too difficult to go through these illegal routes,” she said.

The most risky option is to ‘pay as you go’ which means that every leg of the journey has to be negotiated anew. This method is often used by young men with limited financial means and with no strong connections in Afghanistan. With nobody who can hold the smuggler to account, they are vulnerable to exploitation and deception.

Take, for instance, Rahman from Badakashan, who was introduced in the first dispatch and who left Afghanistan around a year ago. He travelled to Kabul from Darwaz district to find a smuggler who could help him leave the country. In Turkey he came into contact with a second smuggler in Kabul, who promised to get him to Europe but who didn’t come through. Since then, Rahman has been making his own way through Europe, making large parts of the journey on foot. With no powerful relatives in Kabul, he has no way to confront the smuggler. All he can do is keep trying to get a hold of him, but so far he has not answered his phone.

The young man from Herat (who had been living in Tehran) had a similar story. He paid a smuggler two million toman (around 660 US dollars) to take him to Turkey and 4,000 US dollars to take him from Turkey to Germany:

I found the first smuggler through friends who gave me his number. He arranged the border crossing to Turkey. Then I had to wait for a week until the money was arranged [for the next part of the journey] with the next smuggler. He was an Afghan from Kabul. The Iranian smuggler handed me over to this smuggler. … I finally left Turkey 20 days ago [after many attempts], but now the smuggler has abandoned me here in Serbia. I have no parents, only a brother and sister; nobody who can help me or send me money.

The uncertainty involved in finding a new smuggler (for those having to arrange their trip as they go along) or reconnecting with an existing one (for those who fear they have been abandoned) is illustrated in the following conversation between three young Afghan men overheard by AAN:

“I’m in real trouble, I cannot find my shabaka [network] anymore.”

“Same for me. I’m trying to get in touch with —. They say he is the most powerful one. But I can’t find him.”

“Just hang around in the park, they will find you.”

“I have heard there is also a Pakistani smuggler called ‘—’ They say all Pakistanis are with him.”

“The only one I know how to contact is ‘—’ He is a Kashmiri. But they say he cannot be trusted. He locks people up and beats them and steals everything from them.”

The smuggling networks

Most networks on the ground seemed to be run by Afghans, although there was also mention of Pakistani and Bangladeshi smugglers (particularly along the route from Greece), and Iranians and Iranian Kurds along the Iranian-Turkish border.

The ‘extended family’ who said they had come directly from Kunduz had dealt with Bangladeshi smugglers they had found in Greece: “Our smugglers were from Bangladesh, but there were also a few Afghans; they were Pashtu-speakers. Only one of them spoke Dari.” Another family mentioned that their three Afghan guides had spoken four languages between them: Dari, Urdu, Turkish and Bulgarian.

There seemed to be relatively little overlap, competition or cooperation with the local Serb and other criminal or smuggling networks. Only on a practical level – transport, accommodation, border crossings – was there mention of involvement from locals. As one of the volunteers commented:

Smuggling is organised by Afghans and others. The Serb networks cannot interfere because of the language barrier. The Serbs that are involved are hired. … However they [the smugglers] sometimes use Roma minors with mobile phones and GPS to cross the border. An adult goes to cut the wire first. This is a big offence, so they don’t enter themselves. The minors then take groups of migrants across. According to the law, minors cannot be prosecuted for people smuggling.

Occasionally, local people are enlisted to help with transport or accommodation. See for instance the story of a woman from Kabul, a former NGO worker in her forties, who was travelling with her children:

We travelled to Iran with legal visas and spent two days in Tehran. Then we left with the smugglers, first to Turkey, then to Bulgaria, then to Serbia. We were on the road for a month and crossed all borders without being caught. We travelled in a group of around 40 people: it was our family and the rest were Afghan and Pakistani boys. The smugglers were Afghan. They knew the way, although they did get lost once and we had to turn back. In Bulgaria, we stayed in a guesthouse for a few days. There were two rooms there, one for us and one for the boys. The owner of the house was a Bulgarian woman. When I washed my chador, only once, she told me off for using too much water. And then she completely closed off the water supply. She was very harsh, for no reason.

The mechanics of travel

Travelling was usually done in groups of between 20 to 40 people that were put together by the smugglers. Borders and obstacles, such as rivers, were either crossed in smaller groups or alone. In some cases, smugglers or their helpers accompanied the migrants, while in other cases migrants were sent across with only minimal instructions. Once they arrived, everyone was usually regrouped and transported onwards (or made to walk).

The man and his daughter who had been split from the rest of their family found a new smuggler after they were deported to Afghanistan. They travelled to Iran and tried to cross the border into Turkey again. This is how it went the second time:

There were three small rivers. The first one was less than a kilometre from the border. We had to cross it in a rubber boat; two people crossed first and then they pulled the rest across in the boat. The second river was half in Turkey, half in Iran. We crossed that too. At the third river there was no boat, the water came up to our stomachs.

They had pointed us in which direction to go. We were with 30 people. The young went very quickly. Then the smuggler called one of them and told him not to leave my daughter and I behind. So the boy came back for us. The smuggler had given him a phone and had told him the car would not come if we were not also there.

At some point it was just the three of us walking, the others were already on the other side of the road. They had given us the ‘address:’ they told us to follow a certain star, but we went the wrong way. We ended up close to a Turkish police post. Luckily the police had gone to have dinner, but we had to walk eight extra kilometres to reach the meeting point, because we lost our way. It was just the two of us and the other traveller who had the phone. We finally arrived in the forest and there we heard a “ssst.” The car then came to pick us up, all twenty of us. Within two minutes we were in Turkey. The other men had all changed, we were the only ones still in our wet clothes. But we were so happy we made it.

The young man from Tehran had a similar experience when he tried to cross the border between Iran and Turkey:

I had to go through water, it came up to my neck. I had to cross the river alone. [The smuggler] said there would be a car waiting at the other end. But when I arrived my SIM card didn’t work [so I couldn’t find the car]. I returned to the Iranian side. He fixed the SIM and I had to go through the water again. When I arrived on the other side, I called and waited. A few others also came through the water: six boys, also Afghans. We had to run to the road where the car arrived. I was tired because I had crossed the water twice so I couldn’t keep up with them, but they waited for me.

The interviewees used different words to describe the smugglers and guides who accompanied them, giving them names such as jello-ro (someone one who goes ahead), ham-rah (fellow traveller) and rah-rawan (a runner). The distinction between smugglers and migrants while travelling was not always easy to make. One of the young women who travelled as part of a family talked about “the boys who were given the phone,” which could refer to travellers who had been given a temporary, specific task, but also to the smugglers’ helpers. Several interviewees said they believed that members of the groups they had travelled with pretended to be migrants, when they were, in fact, smugglers.

One interviewee pointed out several young men who had just arrived at the park in Belgrade and were queuing to receive dry clothes and rucksacks; he believed they were smugglers. “There are so many smugglers,” he said. “Sometimes you don’t even meet them. Sometimes they stand 1 to 2 kilometres away, just waving and guiding the way. There are so many of them here [in the park] too. There are almost more smugglers than refugees.”

Hand-overs and internal modes of payment

Travel – whether ‘guaranteed’ or ‘pay-as-you-go’ – involves a large number of transitions and handovers, as travellers cross borders and countries. Sometimes the hand-over is seamless, while in other cases migrants need to re-establish contact with their main smuggler. The man from Tehran who had managed to reach Turkey with his daughter, related how the next part of their journey unfolded:

After we crossed the border into Turkey [after a second, successful attempt], we travelled two to three hours to Dogu Bayezit. There we stayed two nights. The smugglers did their money business and got us tickets for the bus to Istanbul. In Istanbul we stayed at a friend’s house. I didn’t leave the house for a week, until I realised that it was like here in Serbia and that it was no problem that we had no documents. Then I called [the smuggler in] Herat and he said go to this maidan [square] and a man will find you. So I went and someone came to me and said “are you the traveller from Kabul?” Then he took me with him. After that we tried to cross the border into Bulgaria.  

Internally, networks appear to have a staggered payment system in which different legs of the journey are authorised by the principal smuggler beforehand and then paid afterwards. This seems to happen even for local transport, as related by the young man who had travelled from Tehran:

When we got into Bulgaria we had to walk for three nights and four days. We were with 30 Afghans. There were families and also an old man and an old woman. Some boys had to carry the old woman. In Bulgaria the police got us. A car was supposed to pick us up and bring us to Sofia. [The smugglers] said it would take one hour, but in the end we had to sleep in the forest. There the Bulgarian police found us. They brought us back to the Turkish border at around midnight. We tried to make a fire, but it was raining. The police had taken all our food and money, and they beat us before they released us. It rained till morning.

In the morning we got a taxi and drove back to Istanbul; it took six or seven hours. We didn’t have money to pay for the taxi, but we phoned the smuggler and he okayed it. After that we spent two or three nights in Istanbul in our dirty, wet clothes. Then we tried again. Again we walked for two nights to the border. Again the police brought us back. Again a car brought us back to Istanbul. The taxi drivers know, it’s a business for them.

The internal payment system doesn’t always work. There were several stories of principal smugglers not coming through with payments, even though local smugglers had already arranged the trip. This was usually taken out on the migrant in question, as happened to the young man from Tehran, when he finally arrived in Bulgaria:

In Sofia we spent two days in a guesthouse. I was held like a hostage while they waited for the smuggler [from Afghanistan] to give the green light [ie signal that the money had been taken care of]. But he didn’t give the green light. So after two days I was taken to another guesthouse and then another. I was held like this for a week with almost no food. They only brought me a burger every 24 hours.

After a week the Bulgarian police raided the guesthouse where he was being held and gave him a choice: deportation or asylum. He filed a request for asylum and was moved to an open camp. As soon as he was allowed to travel, he returned to Sofia where he re-contacted the smuggler:

I called the smuggler to come and take me; he then called a Bulgarian who took me to a guesthouse where I stayed for two days. Then we went to the Serbian border, which was a five-hour drive away.

He managed to cross the border with half of his group, even though they had been detected by the Bulgarian police (the other half of the group was caught and deported). But his ordeal did not end there:

In Belgrade I was held hostage for another eight days while waiting for the smuggler to give the green light. The men beat me and kept asking me for the money. In the end I escaped. Now I stay in the camp [Krnjača] at night, where they give us tuna fish three times a day. Most of the others I travelled with have left Serbia by now. Their money was released. Mine still isn’t. I sometimes see the men in the street when I am in the city; they threaten me and say they will take me again, and keep me until the money is paid. They are Afghan, but they also seem to know the local language here. (…) If I don’t get the money, I’ll have to try to cross the border on my own. Here in Serbia I have been given shelter, but I am not sure I want to stay.

The man from Herat, who had been living in Tehran and who was travelling with his wife, had a similar story:

We spent five nights in a khabgah [a place to sleep] on the Macedonian border. It was a big tent. They gave us food, but otherwise we were just waiting for the ‘game.’ Every night we tried to cross the border. We couldn’t flee because we were in the mountains, so they could do what they wanted. It’s bad to say it, but they assaulted my wife there. … They also beat a few Somali travellers and they assaulted a Somali woman. The smugglers were Pakistanis and Bangladeshis.

Some of the travellers had been there for ten to twelve days; they were being held as hostages until their money was released. … A husband and wife and two sisters were held there; they had called for the money to be released and it was, but the smuggler had taken it and had fled. Other women arrived yesterday from the same khabgah; they said this family was still being kept there.

Once in Belgrade

In Belgrade, most migrants passed through the ‘Afghan Park.’ One morning we witnessed such an arrival. A family – the mother who used to work for an NGO, three daughters, between the ages of ten to eighteen, a grown son and an unrelated older woman – had just been dropped off. Their shoes and clothes were still wet from a night walking in the rain, while crossing the Bulgarian forests and the border with Serbia. Their group, they told us, had consisted of themselves and a large number of young Afghan and Pakistani men – many of whom had also just been dropped at the park and who greeted the family respectfully.

In the space of an hour, we saw the family slowly gather dry socks and shoes from various distribution points to replace their own wet ones. Later, they collected clothes, biscuits and backpacks. They complained about the harshness of the journey: “We walked for four days in the rain. We slept in the forest, under plastic that we had taken with us. We had to walk through thorns, now our feet and legs are injured.” Their final destination was Germany, while the adolescent daughter had a fiancé in France.

The family was deliberating whether they should go to the Krnjača asylum centre or not. It was clear that they were looking forward to a bed and a shower, but they were afraid to have their fingerprints taken and to potentially jeopardise their future asylum requests elsewhere. A young Afghan man assured them there was no problem:

I have already been in the camp [Krnjača] for ten days and no one took my fingerprints. If they had, I wouldn’t have gone. I didn’t give fingerprints anywhere. When I was caught in Bulgaria, the police asked me: “Money or prints?” That was an easy decision. I gave them 50 euros and they let me go.

The young man was right. At the time, in June 2016, Krnjača had opened its doors to undocumented migrants without demanding that they sign an intention to request asylum – apparently in an attempt to keep the parks from becoming permanent camping sites, as they had been the previous year. Shuttle buses ran between Krnjača and the town several times a day, free of charge. This changed in July 2016, however, when Krnjača closed its doors for those not requesting asylum (see here for details in the second dispatch of the series).

Onwards from Serbia

Volunteers in Belgrade estimated that refugees usually spent about a week in Belgrade: to rest, to reconnect with their smuggler’s network (or to try to find a new one), to raise money if they needed to, and wait. See also this article from May 2016:

According to the testimonies of the refugees and Info Park volunteers, the main reason for the daily stay in park is the exchange of information on continuing this journey, as well as the presence of the human traffickers, who offer them illegal entry into Hungary. Every day, in the afternoon and evening hours, approximately the same number of refugees leaves Belgrade, taking buses to Subotica [near the Hungarian border]. It is assessed that at any moment, there are at least 500-600 people in transit in Belgrade.

The onward journey from Serbia to the EU, still runs through Hungary, despite the country’s efforts to close its borders and to discourage and counter the influx of illegal migrants (alternative routes, for instance through Kosovo, have not yet opened up). At the moment there are two ways of entering Hungary: one is legal and regularised, the other is not.

For the legal route, Afghan and Syrian families can present themselves to Serbian guards at either the Horgoš or Kelebija border crossings and camp out on a strip of so-called ‘no-man’s land’ between the two countries, under the shadow of the barbed wire fence Hungary has raised along the whole border. Conditions at these makeshift camps are bad (although they have improved somewhat since migrants have been allowed to set up tents and aid organisations have set up some very basic sanitary services). The Hungarian authorities allow between 15 and 30 people to be interviewed each day, even though the total number waiting is in the hundreds. (For footage of Horgoš and Belgrade see this short video by the German TV news programm Tagesschau).

The various families AAN met planned to take this route, as did the engineer from Iran who was travelling with his daughter. When AAN spoke to him he had just heard from others who had done the same:

The night before last, one family went to the Hungarian border. They told us “you have to take two buses and then walk.” They sent a message just now that they had arrived and that they had had their interview. They think they can maybe leave in 12 days.

To enter illegally, one needs to navigate Hungary’s ever-increasing border control measures, which means relying on the help of smugglers. Although Hungary has erected a four-metre high fence along the full length of its border, migrants and refugees still manage to slip across. Smugglers and their helpers either physically cut through the fence, or take advantage of doors made to allow local people with fields on both sides of the border to pass; smugglers may have access to the keys or they may remove the locks and replace them with their own. Despite the fact that it has become increasingly difficult to cross the borders, prices are said to have gone down. This is a reflection of the fact that most travellers simply do not have much money left. As the young man from Herat who was travelling with his wife told AAN:

They say it costs 20 Euros to be taken to the [Hungarian] border and 500 Euros to cross [illegally], but we don’t even have enough money left to be taken there. I sold everything I had in Afghanistan. Now we are stuck here. How can I tell my parents that all the money has been wasted? They are old and their health is frail. They will worry so much.

Looking ahead

Since AAN visited Serbia in June 2016, the situation has worsened (see the second dispatch for details). Services in Belgrade have been cut, closed or are badly overstretched. The number of people waiting at the Horgoš and Kelebija transit zones is growing, even though still only very few will be allowed in. A new Hungarian law has moreover resulted in an increased number of deportations of migrants who did manage to cross the border illegally.

In reaction to these measures, a large group of Afghan and Pakistani men have marched to the Hungarian border, where they have begun a hunger strike in the hope of ultimately being admitted to Hungary. Serbian authorities, in the meantime, seem worried that the increasingly effective border controls in Hungary will mean their country will now become the final destination for the many Afghans as well as others who find themselves stranded there. (6)

State Secretary for Labour and Social Affairs, Nenad Ivanišević, visited the Horgoš border crossing on 27 July 2016, together with labour minister Aleksandar Vulin, and announced that Serbia would ask the EU for help, given that “the Balkan route is not closed.”

 

This series of three dispatches stems from research carried out in Belgrade in June 2016 by AAN’s Jelena Bjelica, Martine van Bijlert and Fabrizio Foschini. During the course of their research, they conducted interviews with migrants, aid workers, volunteers and informed observers, visited the main gathering places for Afghan migrants in Belgrade and tried to gain access to the Horgoš and Kelebija transit zones.

 

(1) The couple belonged to a group that had presented itself as an extended family. Later, it turned out that they were not related. They said they had “become family” in Greece, because they were from the same area and needed to help each other. The group consisted of a young couple with a child (the wife was pregnant with their second child), an unrelated older couple with a teenage son and daughter and an unrelated adult single man (who may have been the helper of one of the smugglers).

(2) These allegations were confirmed by Pro Asyl, a leading German refugee organisation, in a report (in German) published in mid-April 2016. It speaks about “an alarming degree denigrating and inhuman treatment of refugees in Bulgaria – to the point of torture in jails for refugees” and the “refusal of medical help even in emergency cases”. The Bulgarian police is supported by so-called vigilante groups, many of them of extreme rightist persuasion, who patrol the border, ‘hunt’ and ‘arrest’ refugees and hand them over to the police (see for example this BBC report). The largest one claims to have 26,000 members alone, according to a German media report.

(3) Many migrants reported having lost their phones to the police. Although it is clear that this does often happen, some of the reports may have been exaggerated. Aid organisations have in the past distributed smart phones to people who had lost them, so some people may have hoped to receive one by claiming to now be totally without means of communication.

(4) In Greece the police intercepted his group shortly after they arrived:

We were sleeping when the police arrived. The car stopped and then they turned on their lights. They saw 30 people lying by the road. They took us to the police station and kept us there till morning. The Greek police was better than the police in Bulgaria, at least they let us sleep. … They took our mobiles and said they would give them back but they didn’t. They only gave the old ones back.

(5) Payment methods tend to vary, depending on how the smuggler operates and what travellers manage to negotiate. In earlier conversations in Kabul we found that families often deposited money with trusted middlemen, such as a saraf (a money changer) or a hawala dealer, who would then release the money in previously agreed instalments whenever a part of the journey was completed. None of the interviewees in Belgrade mentioned such a specific arrangement. It is unclear whether this means that they had not been made or that the travellers who were interviewed were unaware of the details.

(6) There have been requests to IOM by Afghans to be repatriated to Afghanistan, including by at least one minor. These requests are, however, pending, apparently due to the inability of Afghan embassies in neighbouring countries to decide which of them should issue the required documents.

French Aquitaine Class Frigate

Alion Science and Technology has been awarded a $145m contract by the US Naval Sea Systems Command to support the management of design, construction, outfitting and testing of the US Navy’s Arleigh Burke-class warships, DDG 51.

The US Naval Air Forces has successfully completed a Fleet Battle Experiment (FBE) for the future Navy variant CMV-22B Osprey aircraft aboard Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70).

Lockheed Martin has successfully completed two flight tests of its new Dual Mode Plus laser guided bomb (LGB) at the Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division in China Lake, California, US.

American M6 Aircrew Survival Weapon

The Royal Australian Navy’s (RAN) Canberra-class landing helicopter dock ship HMAS Canberra (L02) has conducted hot refuelling of the US Marine Corps’ (USMC) two helicopters, the AH-1 SuperCobra, and UH-1 Huey/Venom medium utility aircraft.

The Republic of Singapore Navy has selected Kelvin Hughes to supply a SharpEye navigation radar for its Independence-class littoral mission vessel (LMV) programme.

Construction has officially started on the US Navy’s second expeditionary sea base (ESB), the future USNS Hershel Woody Williams, with a keel laying ceremony held at General Dynamics Nassco’s San Diego shipyard.

Specialist supplier of display technology for industrial and professional applications DATA MODUL will be highlighting its innovative product developments for marine and industrial applications at this year's SMM show in Hamburg.

The unprecedented flow of people through the Western Balkans in late 2015 and early 2016, and the opening of a humanitarian corridor, provided a brief and unique opportunity for people from war-torn countries to reach the European Union. When the corridor closed in March 2016 many people, including many Afghans, found themselves stranded and, again, at the mercy of smuggling networks. In this second dispatch of a three-part series, Jelena Bjelica and Martine van Bijlert discuss how the migration flows have impacted Serbia, a key transit country on the way to Europe, and how the situation for Afghans, and others, is becoming ever more precarious.

Part I: The opening and closing of the Balkan corridor

Part 2: In transit through Serbia

Part 3: The re-emergence of the smugglers along the Balkan route

 

Serbia’s asylum policy

Until 2008, the Serbian government did not have a clear policy on asylum. In that year it passed an Asylum Act, however its implementation remained ad hoc. The Asylum Office that was envisaged under the new Act was only established at the end of 2014 (until then asylum procedures were conducted by the Asylum Unit within the Aliens Department of the MOI Border Police Directorate).

According to the Asylum Act, a foreigner can express ‘the intention to seek asylum’ in Serbia. The asylum seeker is ‘recorded’ (rather than registered) and given a copy of the certificate of expressed intent. The asylum seeker then needs to report to an asylum official or asylum centre within 72 hours to register the actual request. The expression of intent is not yet considered an asylum request and does not initiate an asylum procedure.

Between 1 April 2008, when the act came into force, and 31 December 2014, a total of 28,285 people signed a form expressing their intention to seek asylum in Serbia (77 in 2008, 275 in 2009, 522 in 2010, 3,132 in 2011, 2,723 in 2012, 5,066 in 2013 and 16,490 in 2014). In all those years, only six people were granted refugee status and twelve were granted subsidiary protection.

Out of the 16,500 people who expressed an intention to seek asylum in Serbia in 2014, 3,071 were Afghan and 9,701 Syrian. Only 1,350 of them actually registered with the Asylum Unit; 388 actually applied for asylum; and only 18 were interviewed. The Asylum Unit upheld six asylum applications, dismissed 12 (but presumably provided subsidiary protection; see above) and discontinued proceedings for 307 applications (for a detailed overview see this Belgrade Centre for Human Rights 2014 report).

The low number of cases processed is a reflection of the fact that Serbia was not a country of destination. Most migrants only transited through in order to continue their journey to the EU. In practice, the policy of the Serbian government was apparently to register people, give them the necessary documents with which they could file their asylum request, and hope they would move on.

Thus, when the refugee crisis broke in 2015, the Commissariat of Refugees, the government agency tasked with housing asylum seekers, was only staffed with 70 employees. According to media reports, there were no translators, social workers or lawyers.

Dealing with rising numbers in 2015

During 2015, numbers rose swiftly. According to figures AAN received from UNHCR Serbia, some 13,000 people expressed their intention to request asylum in the first four months of 2015 (against 16,500 for the whole of 2014). In May 2015 this was over 9,000, in June 2015 over 15,000, in July 2015 almost 30,000; until in October 2015, over 180,000 people were recorded by the Serbian police in a single month. At the end of the year a total of 577,995 people had recorded their intent for asylum with the Serbian authorities. Of these, 160,831 were Afghans.

Very few of them, however, actually initiated the process for asylum. According to Frontex figures, out of the almost 600,000 who recorded their intention to request asylum, 11,000 or so registered at a reception centre but only 583 actually filed an official application (551 of these applications were later rejected, mainly because the migrants in question had left before the procedure was finalised).

The Serbian government continued to opt for a ‘soft’ refugee policy, mainly by turning a blind eye to the flow of people transiting through the country. Serbian politicians reminded the public of refugees’ plight in the former Yugoslavia during the wars in the 1990s and asked for patience and acceptance. (1) At the same time, the authorities were fairly clear that they considered Serbia a transit country and did not intend it to become a “reception centre for refugees” (see for instance this statement by Aleksandar Vulin, the minister of Labour and Social Affairs, in July 2015). Even if the authorities registered people’s intention to request asylum, they counted on the fact that most of them would move on before their 72 hours of legal stay in Serbia expired. (2)

In early July 2015, as the number of people on their way to Europe – via Turkey, Greece and the Western Balkans – grew, the Serbian authorities established a so-called ‘one-stop reception camp’ in Preševo on the border with Macedonia. At first, migrants could check into the camp on a voluntary basis, but later, as the desire to control the flow grew, it was made compulsory. Migrants were guided from the border crossing to the camp, where they were fingerprinted and photographed and made to sign an ‘intention to seek asylum’. Most of them, after that, simply bought a bus or train ticket and continued their journey to the border with Hungary, which they crossed illegally (see pictures here of migrants walking across the green border between Serbia and Hungary in June 2015).

With the border practically open and authorities allowing – even facilitating – travel, the involvement of smugglers greatly decreased. Taxi drivers, however, faired very well, particularly those who overcharged for their services. According to a local journalist, many charged up to 400 Euros per head, in a full minivan, to drive people from Preševo to the Hungarian border (a regular bus ticket from Preševo to Subotica, the main town near the border, is about 25 to 35 Euros). When the flow of people was redirected from the Hungarian to the Croatian border, taxis continued to overcharge people on that route, too. People commented on the number of taxi drivers who had made enough money in that brief period to be able to buy new apartments in Belgrade.

In a bid to curb the growing number of migrants crossing the border illegally, in June 2015 the Hungarian authorities announced a plan to build a four-metre high fence along its 177-kilometre border with Serbia (a media report here). Although the fence was not completed until mid-September 2015, far fewer migrants were able to cross (see for instance this picture, taken on 10 September 2015).  Hungary officially sealed its Horgoš border crossing on 15 September, amid clashes and demonstrations (see here).

Most people immediately began moving westwards towards Croatia and very soon, the Serbian government started transporting people from Preševo (at the Macedonian border) and Dimitrovgrad (at the Bulgarian border) by bus to the Berkasevo/Babska border crossing with Croatia. The Serbian government essentially herded people from one border crossing to another.

 Civil society groups provide support

In the Serbian capital Belgrade, volunteers and civil society activists set up two main initiatives to help migrants and refugees passing through their city: Refugee Aid Miksalište and Info Park. The Miksalište initiative was founded in August 2015 by a group of expatriates based in Belgrade, mainly from Australia and the UK. Originally set up as a social centre, Miksalište functioned as a refugee centre during the day, where refugees could receive aid and socialise, while doubling as a bar at night. The Info Park, a wooden shack based in the park next to the central bus station, opened in September 2015. Run by volunteers, Info Park was an information point for migrants who had just arrived in Belgrade, where they could receive advice, use Wifi and recharge their phone batteries. When the situation near the park deteriorated, the initiative widened its scope and started providing direct aid.

“We opened on 16 September 2015, which was exactly when the Hungarian border closed,” Info Park founder Gordon Paunović told AAN. “At the time all the flow was through Hungary, so we thought we had opened too late. That maybe we would be active for a few weeks only.” Indeed, when the humanitarian corridor through Croatia opened, for a while both numbers and workload were limited. “Buses from the Macedonian border went directly to the Croatian border; Belgrade was bypassed. We only received those who had taken the Bulgaria route or the people who came from Macedonia by train.”

This changed when, in late 2015, authorities from the most affected countries decided to only allow the transit of Syrian, Afghan and Iraqi nationals. Controls were tightened and migrants who were not Syrian, Iraqi or Afghan were stopped at the Croatian border. According to a coordinator at the Miksalište refugee aid centre: “Iraqi, Syrian and Afghan refugees, at the time, were good to go. The rest had to be returned to Belgrade.” In February 2015, a deal between the heads of police from five countries further restricted the list, after which Afghans were also refused entry at the Croatian border (for details, see the first dispatch here).

These measures meant that many people were cast adrift, with most them gravitating towards Belgrade. As they were not considered asylum seekers by Serbia, they were not admitted into Krnjača asylum centre, one of eight government-run centres. (It is also possible that many did not want to go there, for fear that being entered into the electronic registration system might interfere with a future asylum claim elsewhere.) The situation soon became untenable, with large numbers of people camping in two parks next to the bus station (for pictures and the Info Park appeal, see here).

“They were sleeping in the park in freezing weather,” Gordon said. “So we started distributing tea and noodles, even though this was not what we were set up for. We could not provide accommodation, but there was a hostel that could. We tried to help in whatever way we could. One night the situation got so bad that a large group stormed the office of the Asylum Info Centre [an initiative of the Belgrade Human Rights Centre to provide legal advice] so they could take shelter inside.”

The situation changed again in March 2016 when, as a result of the EU-Turkey deal,  the Western Balkan route was officially closed (both the EU and Turkey agreed that people could no longer cross the Aegean sea or continue their journey towards Europe, and all new irregular migrants would be returned to Turkey as of 20 March 2016. In the weeks preceding this date, the Balkan countries closed their borders; for details, see the first dispatch here).

Initially the flow of migrants into Belgrade slackened. “We thought our work was finished. We thought there would be no more refugees coming through Turkey and Greece into Serbia,” Gordon said. “And for a few days there was almost no traffic. But then we realised the Bulgarian border was leaking. The whole smuggling network, that had been dormant for months, was still intact. It had been a bureaucratic decision to try to close it down, but the main mechanisms hadn’t been tackled. We realised this was not the end at all. The flow continued.”

An ambiguous government stance: providing shelter but hampering assistance

As migrants started to reappear on the streets of Belgrade, the authorities adopted a new policy. It was not officially announced but from mid-April 2016, Krnjača, the reception centre in the remote suburbs of Belgrade, started accepting people without the prerequisite signed intention to request asylum. Krnjača had been established as a temporary asylum centre in 2015. At the time, there were five centres for asylum-seekers across the country, which could accommodate up to 780 people. Between January and March 2016, Krnjača and the four other centres were refurbished with EU funds and two new centres were established, providing additional capacity for 700 people.

At around the time that the regime at Krnjača was eased, ICRC was expelled from the park and their container was removed. The next day Miksalište’s building was demolished. “In less than 72 hours, Info Park was the only remaining fixed structure in the park that was helping refugees.” (3) The Serbian authorities, according to Gordon, seemed to have decided to clear Belgrade of migrants, and in particular the area around the two parks. “They did not want to have a camping site like last year.”

The night-time demolition of Miksalište and several other buildings on 27 April 2016 (see here) was part of an effort to make space for the Belgrade Waterfront, an extravagant Abu Dhabi-financed construction project initiated by the Serbian government and the Belgrade Mayor. (4) On 1 June 2016, a month after the demolition of its original venue, Miksalište (2.0) reopened in a new location close to the central bus station. AAN visited the centre several times, as well as the Info Park shack in the park.

Between April and June 2016, Info Park distributed around 800 meals per day. Before its demolition and after it reopened, Miksalište distributed a similar number of meals. It also provided refugees with clothes, shoes, food, medical check-ups and other services as necessary. According to UNHCR, there were over 1,000 refugees/migrants on average in Belgrade throughout June 2016, with another 500 being assisted in the city centre and as many sheltered in Krnjača. 

The situation worsens again

At the time of AAN’s visit in mid-June 2016, the situation seemed manageable. The decision to allow migrants and refugees to stay in Krnjača without registering meant there were no longer people sleeping in the parks or in the city’s alleys. The places where aid was distributed or advice given – Info Park, Miksalište, Asylum Information Centre – were crowded and possibly overstretched, but they were not overwhelmed. This changed over the following weeks, for several reasons.

On 1 July 2016, Miksalište closed again, reportedly due to “a lack of capacity to deal with the large number of people in need.” (5) A week later, on 8 July 2016, after being given the European Citizenship Award 2016, Miksalište announced it had decided to re-open its doors but only for women, families with children and unaccompanied minors. The men would be sent to an – unspecified – alternative location.

Info Park, which had immediately taken over most of the distribution responsibilities, responded with a terse statement on its Facebook page on 6 July 2016:

“During this weekend we had a clear showcase what this lack of responsibility and solidarity means: the park was overcrowded with refugees in an increasing state of anxiety due to a concern for [their] own survival. Every distribution of meals or non-food items was on the edge of a battle, with humanitarian workers put into a very dangerous position to balance between preserving their own safety and providing aid.”

A new Hungarian law, effective as of 5 July 2016, subsequently legitimised pushback into Serbia and resulted in a total closure of the border (for a critique of the law, by the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, see here). UNHCR noted that in the first week of July several hundreds migrants left Belgrade and other locations to reach the north of Serbia and enter into Hungary and Croatia. In the transit zones on the Serbian-Hungarian border near Horgoš and Kelebaija, 300 to 500 people had already been stranded in June 2016, hoping to be allowed into Hungary (the country had an unofficial policy to allow around 15 people a day into its territory, almost exclusively families). (6) In the first week of July the number of people in transit zones rose to 920.

Hungary started to return people, apparently at night and through ‘improvised’ border crossings (see here).  On 8 July 2016, Info Park reported that several returnees had been in a bad state and that their volunteers had only barely managed to avert a protest. Numbers continued to grow, with migrants being sent back from the Hungarian border, new migrants arriving from Macedonia and Bulgaria, and a significant number of people still stuck and with no money left to travel onwards (see the upcoming third dispatch in this series for more details).

According to the Commissariat, numbers reached around 1,200 per day in mid-July 2016, well beyond the capacity of Krnjača’s refugee centre. Info Park also reported it was distributing around 1,200 meals per day under conditions that were increasingly difficult to manage, and talked about the “collapsing humanitarian situation in the park.”

On 16 July 2016, Krnjača centre was emptied. Only those who had registered their intent to request asylum were moved to other camps; everyone else was simply turned out. A growing number of people, including minors and families with small children, now had to spend the night outside, in parks and public garages. During the night of 18 July 2016, Info Park counted 600 people sleeping in and around the parks and the next day they distributed 1,800 meals. On 20 July 2016, the City Greenery department started ploughing one of the two small parks where the migrants gathered and the following week it moved to the next one, in what appeared to be an attempt to rid the parks of people and aid distribution.

These measures coincided with a clear change in tone by the Serbian authorities. On 16 July 2016, Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vučić announced the establishment of combined police-military teams tasked with ensuring border security along the borders with Macedonia and Bulgaria. (7) He further singled out Afghans and Pakistanis, saying that a majority of the 2,700 migrants currently in Serbia came from Afghanistan and Pakistan, which according to him meant that their chances for asylum in the European Union were “almost nil.” He added that “Serbia cannot be a parking lot for Afghanis [sic] and Pakistanis whom nobody wants to see, let alone admit into their country.” He was clear on the new lines of the policy: “Whoever asks for asylum in Serbia will be received in a reception centre and whoever does not, will be removed from Serbian soil according to the law.”

On 22 July 2016 around 300 Afghans and Pakistanis, with no place to go, started a march towards the Hungarian border, hoping to force the authorities to let them through. A hunger strike that had started in Belgrade was resumed in Horgoš. According to UNHCR there are currently around 1,400 people camping near the border with little chance of being admitted (for photos of the march and hunger strike, as well as the conditions in Belgrade, see the Facebook page of Info Park).

Hungary’s Prime Minister, Victor Orban, in the meantime, too, had chosen a belligerent stance. During a joint press conference with Austrian Chancellor Christian Kern, he called migration “a poison” and stated that his country does not need a single migrant:

Hungary does not need a single migrant for the economy to work, or for the population to sustain itself, or for the country to have a future.

This is why there is no need for a common European migration policy: whoever needs migrants can take them, but don’t force them on us, we don’t need them … every single migrant poses a public security and terror risk. For us migration is not a solution but a problem… not medicine but a poison, we don’t need it and we won’t swallow it.

With all borders now closed, an increasing number of migrants have found themselves stranded in countries where they did not want to end up. Many of them are still trying to make their way towards the EU, in spite of their depleted resources and the reluctance to be dependent again on the services of indifferent and often abusive smuggling networks.

In the third dispatch, AAN takes a closer look at how the smuggling networks are organised and what this means for the Afghans who depend on them.

 

This series of three dispatches stems from research done in Belgrade in June 2016 by AAN’s Jelena Bjelica, Martine van Bijlert and Fabrizio Foschini. During the course of their research, they conducted interviews with migrants, aid workers, volunteers and informed observers, visited the main gathering places for Afghan migrants in Belgrade and tried to gain access to the Horgoš and Kelebija transit zones.

 

(1) “When people speak about refugees from Syria and Afghanistan they speak (about them) as a great problem. We welcomed them in Serbia. We know how our people suffered 20 years ago. I am proud that Serbia is their best refuge and the safest place, on their way to the EU,” the Serbian prime minister for instance said, in August 2015, after he visited the park near the main bus station in Belgrade where many migrants gather. According to the article he told migrants: “We will do everything for you, so you are safe like in your own house, and you’re always welcome in our country.”

(2) On 30 December 2015, according to Frontex, Serbia changed its legislation and started providing documents to migrants from conflict areas (Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq) which allowed them 72 hours’ transit across the country, even if they did not express an intention to apply for asylum.

(3) In the months that followed, Info Park also came under considerable bureaucratic and political pressure to close. There were political complaints, as well as demands for an increasing list of permits (including from the City Greenery department, a cultural heritage permit, a municipal permit, and a sanitary permit). So far, Info Park has managed to fulfil all demands and remains in the park.

(4) An analysis of the power structures within the Serbian government and their relations can be found here. With regard to the demolition process, local media reported that “several people posted testimonies on social media claiming that around 30 masked men armed with sticks, intercepted, searched, tied up and detained them in the area of Savamala during the demolition process.” The Public Prosecutor ordered an investigation into the case in May 2016; so far the city authorities have denied any involvement. The event triggered a series of protests in Belgrade.

(5) The closure happened despite the fact that Miksalište is supported by a large number of agencies and donors. The new centre opened with the help of the Norwegian Refugee Council, CARE Serbia, the European Commission’s Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection Office (ECHO), NGO Praxis Serbia, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, Save the Children, Novosadski humanitarni Centar and Lifegate Novi Sad.

(6) AAN’s researchers visited the border area but were not allowed near the transit zones. AAN, as instructed, then sent an official request to the Serbian Ministry of Interior requesting permission to conduct interviews with Afghans stranded at the border in transit zones. The request was finally refused after several weeks, apparently without having been properly considered. (The ministry wrote: Regarding your request sent to this Ministry, for a permission to visit the transit zones Horgoš and Kelebija, we are informing you that at these locations migrants are assisted by the Red Cross Serbia, IoM, MSF, MDM, UNHCR, HCIT, thus the presence of other organisations is unnecessary.)

(7) Despite the closed borders and the EU and Turkey deal, UNHCR and partners registered an estimated 300 irregular arrivals per day to Serbia near the entry points with Macedonia and Bulgaria, in early July 2016.

 

Americas

• A survey of 31 F-35A pilots has given their full confidence in the upcoming fifth generation fighter. According to the report, all asked would choose the F-35A over their former fighters if they were to engage in a beyond-visual-range fight. Furthermore, despite its cost, the F-35 was deemed notably more effective and in many cases cheaper than any other four-plus-generation multirole fighter in the world.

• MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper pilots are to undergo a fifteen-day course in electric warfare missions. The USAF program will see pilots gain training so that they can continue to operate their UAV when under electronic attack such as jamming of their satellite uplinks. Once completed, they will be known as Electronic Combat Officers.

• While Segway hoverboards are the closest most of us currently have to emulating a scene from the movie Back to the Future, a US company specializing in the explosives-trace-detection business is looking to bring the technology to the military. Massachusetts based firm Implant Sciences Corporation is currently in the process of acquiring the French Zapata Industries SAS who reached a proof-of-concept milestone this year by producing a personal flight system it’s calling Flyboard Air. Once completed, Implant hopes to use the technologies gained in order to explore new markets in the defense, security and commercial markets.

• Lockheed Martin has been awarded a $101 million delivery order against a previous agreement for the production of F-35 software data loads. The deal provides for additional non-recurring effort and integration efforts required in support of the F-35 Reprogramming Center West and includes the production of F-35 software data loads for laboratory testing, planning for verification and validation test, conduct technical support of the test, design, build and delivery of verification and validation modification kits and mission data file generation tools for foreign military sales customers.

Middle East North Africa

• Misplaced hysteria or 1930s appeasement? What ever it may be, Israel and the Pentagon are back at loggerheads over the Iranian nuclear deal a week after discussions over the continuation of Washington’s military aid package to the Israeli government. While Israel’s MoD has likened President Obama to a hapless Neville Chamberlain, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seemingly softened the criticism by looking to refocus the discussion on ways the two countries must work together to mitigate dangers.

Europe

• While initially docketed to fly in 2019, the Tu-160M2’s maiden flight will now be moved forward to late 2017. The announcement was made by Russia’s Aerospace Force commander Viktor Bondarev last week. Bondarev continued stating that the first serial produced units of the strategic bomber will have been completed by 2021.

Asia Pacific

• In the search to modernize the world’s largest archipelago nation’s military aircraft, Indonesia is looking to Airbus and Antonov. Meetings have taken place between Indonesian officials and Fernando Alonso, Head of the Military Aircraft division of Airbus Defence and Space, over potential sales of the A400M transport plane and Eurofighter jets. Meanwhile, Ukrainian officials have claimed that Jakarta is set to order An-70 transport planes as well as securing a license to serial produce Ukrainian radar systems.

• Leonardo has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Taiwan’s state-owned Aerospace Industrial Development Corporation to supply 66 M-346s to the Republic of China Air Force. According to the document, Italy will provide the first 4-6 aircraft and the rest will be assembled in Taiwan with 50% components made in Italy alongside any relevant technology transfers. The M-346s will replace existing AT-3 jets due for modernization.

Today’s Video

Zapata Industries:

French MMP Anti-Tank Guided Missile

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