HIGHLIGHTS AND STATISTICS
Early in the new school year, over 150 out of some 800 refugee/migrant children between the ages of 7 and 14 currently in Serbia, already started attending public primary schools across the country. UNHCR continued supporting refugees, authorities, and other partners’ efforts to see this number growing. Authorities plan for children from all 18 governmental centres to attend local public schools except those in the three Transit Centres (TCs) of Subotica, Kikinda and Sombor, who, waiting soon admission into Hungary, will attend classes organized in the TCs by local teachers, instead. In securing access to education to all refugee children, Serbia shall set a positive example, as for too many refugees worldwide education still remains out of reach (UNHCR's new global Refugee Education Report refers).
4,063 new refugees, asylum-seekers and migrants were counted in Serbia on 17 September. 3,761 were housed in 18 governmental centres (please see the below chart and the Joint Assessment of Government Centres).
In an interesting development most of the 97 new arrivals, which UNHCR Serbia and partners encountered this week were not single men from Afghanistan or Pakistan but families from Syria and Iraq.
UNHCR Serbia and partners collected testimonies of 61 collective pushbacks from Croatia and 66 from Hungary, with most alleging to have been denied due access to asylum procedures there.
This week, 55 asylum seekers, mainly families from Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria were admitted into two socalled “transit zones” in Hungary. Visiting the transit zone of Rozske, on 12 September, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, issued a statement, calling on Hungary to improve access for people seeking asylum and to do away with its so-called border “transit zones”, which are in effect detention centres.
UNHCR is most grateful to France for having accepted for resettlement two Women and Girl Refugees at Risk from Afghanistan, who departed for France this week.
With autumn approaching, a number of shelter improvements were concluded, including in Obrenovac TC by DRC with ECHO funding, in Bogovadja AC by Help with German funding, and for the - yet to be opened - new Tutin Asylum Centre (AC) by Divac Foundation with Catholic Relief Services funding.