Asylum Seekers from Serbia Board Buses for Europe
Albanians and Roma from south Serbia are embarking daily on buses and taking advantage of the visa-free regime, trying to reach western European countries, mostly Sweden and Belgium.
“About 5,300 [out of the total of 25,000 asylum seekers in Sweden] come from Serbia,” said Fredrik Bengtsson, information officer at Sweden's National Migration Board. In 2009 the number of Serbian nationals, mostly Roma families, who applied for asylum stood at 570, he added.
Coaches operated by the Presevo-based tourist agency Mimoza 93, which sold tickets to asylum seekers earlier this year, are still driving to Brussels twice a week, said a woman from the agency who refused to be named.
Belgium's junior minister for migration and asylum, Melchior Wathelet, visited the south Serbia municipalities of Presevo and Bujanovac on Wednesday and expressed his serious concern over the growing number of asylum seekers from the region.
He asked the mayors of the two towns to engage more vigorously in resolving the problems of those who apply for asylum.
However, Presovo's mayor, Ragmi Mustafa, told Balkan Insight pointed to Presevo's astronomical unemployment rate, which nears 70 per cent.
"Although we would like to keep them here, we have nothing to offer," he said.
Serbians, Macedonians and Montenegrins were granted visa-free travel to most EU countries in December 2009. While this allows them to cross the border easily, it means they have almost no grounds for claiming asylum in the EU, though thousands have tried since the beginning of the year.
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