Balkan
states start filtering migrant flow to Europe
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[November 19, 2015]
By Ivana Sekularac and Branko Filipovic
BELGRADE/SID, Serbia (Reuters) - Balkan
countries have begun filtering the flow of migrants to Europe, granting
passage to those fleeing conflict in the Middle East and Afghanistan but
turning back others from Africa and Asia, the United Nations and Reuters
witnesses said on Thursday.
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The move left hundreds of people stranded on borders; on Serbia's
frontier with European Union member Croatia, some 400 were denied
access to a train and were halted by Croatian police as they tried
to cross the border through fields, a spokeswoman for the United
Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, told Reuters.
Others were stuck in no-man’s land between Macedonia and Greece,
where Macedonia has become clearing ground for a possible fence.
What has become the greatest migration of people on the European
continent since World War Two has deeply divided the 28-nation EU
and fueled anti-immigration sentiment across the continent.
Calls by some right-wing European politicians to stop the influx
have been fueled by indications that one of the perpetrators of the
Nov. 13 attacks in Paris by Islamist militants, in which 129 people
died, reached Europe by infiltrating the chaotic and often unchecked
flow of migrants.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2015/Nov/19/images/ads/current/cca_laptop-sda021709.png) UNHCR spokeswoman Melita Sunjic said Serbia had implemented a new
approach from late Wednesday: “As of 6 p.m. yesterday evening,
Serbia started turning back (to Macedonia) all but Syrians, Iraqis
and Afghans."
BALKAN TREK
Those three nationalities make up the majority of the hundreds of
thousands of migrants who have trekked across the Balkans this year
in the hope of reaching western and northern Europe, mainly Germany
and Sweden.
However, Reuters reporters on Serbia’s border with Croatia said
others from Iran, Libya and Lebanon were also still crossing.
Migrants arrived by bus at a petrol station near the border Serbian
town of Sid, where police checked their papers. A police officer
said they had been told not to let those from Algeria, Tunisia,
Morocco, Bangladesh, Pakistan or Somalia board trains to Croatia.
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Those denied further passage were taken to a nearby camp.
Officials in Macedonia and Serbia said they acted after Slovenia
informed them it would no longer grant access to those deemed to be
“economic migrants”.
“We won’t allow anyone to enter Serbia who cannot continue their
journey,” Serbia’s pointman for the migration crisis, Aleksandar
Vulin, told reporters.
“We must protect our country and that is why we have undertaken
reciprocal measures towards those for whom Slovenia and Croatia
consider there is no place,” he said.
A police spokesman in European Union member Slovenia confirmed
Ljubljana would start returning “economic migrants” arriving through
neighboring Croatia, saying it could only grant passage to those
“from countries where there are armed battles”.
(Additional reporting by Alexandros Avramidis in IDOMENI, Greece,
Kole Casule in SKOPJE, Igor Ilic in ZAGREB and Marja Novak in
LJUBLJANA; Writing by Matt Robinson; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)
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