Returned Asylum Seekers Arrive in Region

According to Beta news agency, the asylum seekers said they had spent huge amounts of money for the trip and that they had expected Belgian authorities to resolve their economic problems.

More than 400 people from Serbia, and a similar number from Macedonia, have travelled to Belgium to request asylum since the two countries were granted a visa-free regime with the EU in December 2009.

Belgian authorities recently visited the two countries to stress that it is nearly impossible for Macedonian and Serbian nationals to be granted asylum in Belgium, and to urge Skopje and Belgrade to make efforts to stem the tide of departing citizens.

On Wednesday a bus carrying 44 asylum seekers departed Brussels for Macedonia and Serbia.

Posters have been put up in the Bureau for Foreigners in Brussels informing the Macedonian and Serbian asylum seekers that transport is available for their return, but it is not clear if or when all of those who sought asylum will return to their home country.

Most of the asylum seekers from both Macedonia and Serbia were ethnic Albanians and Roma from impoverished areas in the south of Serbia and northern Macedonia.

For more on this story, see One Way Tickets to a Belgian Promised Land.