Serbia Strained by Asylum Seeker Spike

A total of 976 requests for political asylum were sent to the Serbian government between Jan 1 - May 31 this year, or five times more than during the same period in 2010, according to an UNHCR report presented in Belgrade on Tuesday.

Serbia's Asylum Protection Centre says that the people requesting protection are from third world countries who head to Serbia to escape difficult economic and political situations in their home countries.

"People facing difficult political and economic situations in some parts of the world are the profile of asylum seekers in Serbia," Rados Djurovic, head of the Serbia's Asylum Protection Centre, told Balkan Insight, noting that the number of people from Northern Africa has increased since the Arab uprising began this spring.

By the end of May, 730 people from Afganistan had requested asylum, 58 from Pakistan and 50 from Palestine, 28 from Tunisia, eight from Morocco and two from Libya, according to the centre's data.

The Serbian government is currently reviewing a total of 223 cases.

However, all of the applicants have been rejected so far this year, as the main precondition for the status is political persecution- if the persons' rights were violated in their home countries on racial, ethnic, religious, or political grounds.

While the asylum process generally lasts about five months, according to Djurovic, most of the seekers actually leave before they are granted or denied protection.

"Serbia is only their transit station in most cases as there are lots of families, including pregnant women and young children, who need to get some rest on their way to the EU," Djurovic explains.

Nevertheless, the UNHCR has called on Serbia to improve its system for receiving asylum seekers.

The number of requests for asylum in Serbia is rising and in accordance with European rules Serbia will have to find a solution to the problem, the UNHCR representatives said in Belgrade on Tuesday.

Banja Koviljaca in western Serbia, which can host only some 100 asylum seekers, is the only asylum centre in Serbia for now, meaning that other persons in the process rent private rooms in the Banja Koviljaca surrounding area.

A new centre which is scheduled to open in Bogovadja, close to the town of Valjevo, will add another 100 beds to the system.

This is also not the solution as if the growth continues at this speed, Serbia will have received 2,500 asylum seekers by the year's end, according to Djurovic's estimates.

The procedure for requesting asylum in Serbia is relatively simple. Once migrants cross the border into Serbia it is necessary to seek the asylum from the first official of the Interior Ministry they make contact with and this is when the process starts. The person then receives a certificate of an expressed intention to seek asylum and is sent to the asylum centre in Banja Koviljaca.

Meanwhile, Serbian government is trying to curb the number of people from South Serbia, mostly ethnic Albanians and Roma, leaving the country in buses and requesting asylum in Western European countries, as the EU threatens to re-introduce visa regime to the country if the numbers aren't cut.