Source: APC
Photo: APC

As refugees and migrants tell APC field teams in the border areas around Šid and along the Serbian-Croatian border, the current price of smuggling services from Šid via Croatia to Germany is more than 4,000 euros.

According to the testimony of refugees, this is a consequence of the constant forced returns of refugees from the EU member states (Croatia, Hungary and Romania) back to Serbia. As they state, the smugglers are now asking for more money because of greater controls and greater violence against the people returned to Serbia across the border by the police.

Likewise, as an argument to increase the price of smuggling, smugglers cite the intense efforts of the Serbian police to set out refugees from Vojvodina – northern Serbia, and to transport and place them in camps in central and southern Serbia and as far as possible from the external EU borders.

In this way, the EU external border is relieved of migratory pressure, but new problems arise, it strengthens and encourages smuggling, because being displaced, the refugees did not find an alternative and safe haven in the isolated camps of central and southern Serbia, but are forced to try again to reach the EU territory and the promised salvation they see in the EU, now only at an even higher price and at an even greater risk to their lives and with the obligatory help of smugglers.