HIGHLIGHTS AND STATISTICS
With more refugees, asylum-seekers and migrants seeking registration and shelter in harsh winter-weather, their overall count in Serbia increased to close to 7,400. Over 82% were accommodated in 16 government shelters, many exceeding capacities (see below chart). The rest stayed rough in Belgrade city centre or near the border with Hungary.
In Belgrade, UNHCR and partners continued support authorities in counselling, registration and transporting asylum-seekers to designated governmental centres. UNHCR alone moved another 45 during the reporting period from Belgrade city centre to designated camps, making a total of 672 transported during the last month. As a number of men sleeping rough in the city centre still opt not to move to government shelters despite the harsh weather, UNHCR and civil society, in close coordination with the authorities, continued to provide lifesaving aid, such as stoves and additional blankets, winter clothes. At the same time, UNHCR and other humanitarian actors renewed their offers to assist authorities in increasing emergency shelter capacities through additional heated rub-halls, equipping new emergency shelters, introducing vouchers for private accommodation and/or moving unaccompanied or separated children into child care facilities.
On 11 January, authorities transported 167 unregistered men, mostly from North Africa or South Asia, who were staying rough in and around Subotica, including Kelebija, to the Presevo Reception Centre (RC). UNHCR and partners supported their dignified reception and accommodation in the RC. As a result, in the North, only 37 asylum seekers, remained at the two improvised outside the Hungarian “transit zones” near Kelerbije and Horgos border-crossings.
Despite harsh winter conditions, UNHCR and partners continued receiving reports of foreign nationals being collectively expelled. They encountered 50 refugees/migrants claiming to have been denied access to asylum procedures in Hungary but collectively expelled back into Serbia after having entered Hungary irregularly. At the same time UNHCR and partners in fYR Macedonia interviewed 12 persons who claimed to have been pushed-back from Serbia.
01-11 January 2017, the police registered 274 intentions to seek asylum in Serbia.