HIGHLIGHTS AND STATISTICS
The number of new refugees, asylum-seekers and migrants in Serbia continued to stabilise, with 6,618 counted on 4 June. 94% were accommodated in 18 governmental shelters.
On 30 May, a new Reception Centre (RC) in Vranje (South) accommodated a first 135 refugees while, on the next day, the last 200 residents of Transit Centre (TC) Sid were moved to other centres. Chairperson of the Inter-Ministerial Working Group on Mixed Migration, Minister Aleksandar Vulin announced "The number of migrants is under control and therefore we can reduce the accommodation capacity and carry out the redistribution of migrants in accordance with the fact if they are families with children, single people, unaccompanied minors or companied minors. We will try to minimize the burden in city centres” he added. If decreasing number of migrants continues, we will close other centres as well. We are trying not to have a big camp with bad conditions or is more difficult to organize the work. Instead we have several smaller camps that do not burden local communities.” As the Minister confirmed, current availability of long-term shelter capacities (see below chart) should allow for continuing decongestion of overcrowded centres and closure of temporary emergency shelter in tents or rub-halls (currently still used in the TCs of Adasevci, Principovac and Kikinda).
In addition to protection sensitive camp management through separate accommodation of men, families and UASC, UNHCR also welcomes the intentions of authorities to again accommodate refugees/migrants in line with their legal status, i.e. to concentrate all asylum-seekers in a select few suitable asylum-centres.At end-May, some 80% of residents in governmental centres were from so-called refugee-producing countries:
Afghanistan (62%), Iraq (12%) and Syria (5%). 13% from Pakistan and 8% from other countries. 41% were children, 12% adult women and 47% adult men.In May 2017, 577 individuals registered intent to seek asylum in Serbia: 41% were adult men, 2% adult women and 56% children. Most applications were made by citizens of Afghanistan (74%), Pakistan (12%), Iraq (4%), or Syria (4%). The Asylum Office did not issue any substantive first-instance decisions.
UNHCR and partners recorded a very high number of collective expulsions, with many alleging to have been denied access to asylum procedures, from the following EU States: 130 from Hungary, 85 from Croatia and 21 from Romania.