Migrant Invasion Worries Macedonian Village

Footage of the alleged migrants in the village taken by the local Telma TV

Residents of an ethnic Albanian mountain village on the northern border with Serbia say they are scared of the large number of migrants that have been roaming their village for several months.

Last week local Lojane authorities told media they had counted around 400 migrants in the village of some 2,200 residents.

Macedonian police, who have yet to conduct any major action in response, say they suspect local people are involved in the illegal trafficking of migrants.

“These migrants are mostly entering the country illegally from neighbouring Greece and they use Macedonia only as a transit route, hoping to move on to countries in Western Europe,” police spokesperson Ivo Kotevski said.

For now, however, the migrants seem stuck in Macedonia, as the Serbian authorities are stopping them from crossing the border and reaching their destination. Unwilling to go back, they have chosen to stay in the village.

Police say the migrants have chosen particularly this village because some locals may have offered them accommodation and are involved in people trafficking.

“We get complaints from one group of villagers but then another group calls to deny that there are suspicious people stationed nearby,” Kotevski said.

Locals say the migrants have come from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Lybia, Somalia, and India, are live in nearby abandoned shacks and stables. Recently, some residents say they have started breaking in to homes on the outskirts that owners working abroad have left unattended.

“After nightfall, we cannot let our women and children go outside anymore,” one Lojane resident told Balkan Insight.

Macedonian police spokesperson, Ivo Kotevski | Photo by: MVR

“They are moving around and inside the village in groups, buy stuff at the market, but so far there have not been any serious incidents,” he added.

Police say the problem began at the beginning of the year. Catching migrants in the harsh mountainous terrain, and the length of deportation procedures, make the job of addressing the problem difficult, they add.
 
In June police charged one Lojane resident with trafficking migrants after they found four Moroccan citizens in his van.

“Each procedure for deportation costs us about 10,000 euros,” Kotevski said, explaining that procedures with most of the countries from which these people come usually last “very long”.

Macedonia stands on a major route for migrants aiming to reach Western Europe. But police have no exact data on how many illegal immigrants have used the route that leads from the Middle East through Macedonia, Serbia, Hungary and Austria.
 
Police minister Gordana Jankulovska last week said the problem with illegal migrants was increasingly serious and required strengthened regional cooperation.
 
In the first nine months of 2011, Frontex, the EU border security agency, noted some 112,000 illegal migrants coming in to the EU, an almost 100 per cent increase on the same period last year.

Macedonia and Serbia found themselves in the EU spotlight last year after the EU lifted visa requirement on their citizens. EU member states, alarmed by the increase in the number of false asylum-seekers from these countries, started deporting them back home.

Lojane suffered significantly in the 2001 armed conflict between the Macedonian authorities and ethnic Albanian rebels, which ended the same year in a peace deal.