- The number of irregular border crossings into the EU via the Balkan route decreased significantly in the first nine months of 2024 compared to the same period in 2023.
- An NGO has accused the Croatian border police of burning the personal belongings of people who have tried to enter the country irregularly from Bosnia and Herzegovina.
- An ECRE member organisation has appealed to authorities in Serbia to open reception centres for people on the move in the country before the onset of winter.
- The leaders of Hungary, Serbia and Slovakia have criticised EU asylum and migration policies, and called for greater ‘regional co-operation’ to address irregular migration into Europe.
- ECRE member organisation the Hungarian Helsinki Committee has been awarded the 2024 Paul Weis Prize in recognition of its commitment to human rights, the rule of law and refugees.
The number of irregular border crossings into the EU via the Balkan route decreased significantly in the first nine months of 2024 compared to the same period in 2023. According to preliminary data that was published by the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex) on 15 October, the 16,968 crossings that were “detected” on the EU’s eastern borders January-September 2024 represent a 79% decrease from 2023. The overall number of recorded irregular crossings into the EU fell by 42% to 166,000 in the same period.
An NGO has accused the Croatian border police of burning the personal belongings of people who tried to enter the country irregularly from Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). In its recent report entitled ‘Burned Borders’, the NGO No Name Kitchen (NNK) has claimed that border police officers burned people’s possessions, including passports and phones, in a series of “burn piles” along the Croatia-BiH border before pushing them back into BiH. “In the ashes, NNK identified hundreds of melted phones, remnants of clothing, backpacks, shoes, passports and passport photos, and burned folders which usually hold people’s official documents used to apply for asylum once they reach Europe,” the organisation wrote, adding: “The perpetrators of these illegal incinerations are the Croatian border police, who usually work under the cover of darkness in unofficial uniforms and black balaclavas to conduct violence outside the eyes of the law”. Denouncing the “brutal modus operandi” an NNK spokesperson told InfoMigrants: “After so much physical, psychological, and administrative violence at the hands of the European border regime, forcing people to watch their belongings burnt in front of them must be understood as a part of a broader attempt to strip people of their autonomy, dehumanise them, and deprive them of remaining connections to culture and identity”. Despite the various testimonies on which the NNK report was partially based, a spokesperson for the Croatian interior ministry told the Guardian newspaper that it had a “zero-tolerance policy for any potential illegal activities committed by its personnel”. The spokesperson also tried to suggest that the people who were trying to cross the border irregularly may have been responsible for burning their own possessions. “Regarding claims that Croatian police are burning items that they have confiscated from migrants, we would like to let you know that, in order to avoid being returned to Croatia as applicants for international protection, migrants sometimes destroy items they carry with them and discard personal belongings when attempting to cross the border illegally,” they said.
An ECRE member organisation has appealed to authorities in Serbia to open reception centres for people on the move in the country before the onset of winter. On 11 October, the director of the Asylum Protection Center (CZA), Radoš Đurović, told the Beta news agency that there were “at least 200 people by the border with Hungary” and that “the institutions don’t know what to do with the people, among whom there are families,” adding: “then the problem is where to place them, until the police carry out all the procedures and return them to [reception centres in] the south of Serbia”. Đurović, whose organisation had previously criticised the Serbian government’s decision in the summer to close three centres situated close to the country’s borders with Bulgaria, Croatia and Romania, called on the Commissariat for Refugees and Migration to “open camps in Vojvodina, along the border with the EU, as well as in the east of the country (…) so that they can welcome people there,” adding that: “it is in the interest of the institution that people in reception centres seek help, and not from smugglers”.
The leaders of Hungary, Serbia and Slovakia have criticised EU asylum and migration policies, and called for greater “regional co-operation” to address irregular migration into Europe. In a joint statement issued on 22 October following a trilateral summit in the Slovak town of Komárno close to the border with Hungary, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić argued that “the solutions recently adopted at European level do not appear to be effective or sustainable, and should therefore be complemented by further strengthening of the regional dimension of cooperation in combating illegal migration”. They appeared to acknowledge the significant reduction in the number of irregular crossings into the EU via the Balkan route in 2024 when they stressed that “the situation on the Western Balkan migration route has improved considerably in recent months” and they agreed to “further reinforce mutual cooperation and deep the trilateral partnership between Slovakia, Hungary and Serbia”. Speaking after the trilateral summit, in a possible reference to the recent opening of two Italian migration centres in Albania, Vučić stated that Serbia would not become a migration “hotspot”.
ECRE member organisation the Hungarian Helsinki Committee (HHC) has been awarded the 2024 Paul Weis Prize in recognition of its commitment to human rights, the rule of law and refugees. The prize, which is awarded by the Austrian civil society initiative Courage – Courage for Humanity, is named after the Austrian international lawyer and Holocaust survivor Paul Weis who was one of the co-authors of the 1951 Refugee Convention. It was awarded to HHC at a ceremony on 17 October in Vienna. Speaking at the ceremony, Anikó Bakonyi from HHC said: “Our hard-working, committed colleagues work every day tirelessly to uphold the right to asylum, to fight against violent pushbacks at Hungary’s southern border and to protect the rights of beneficiaries of international protection in Hungary where the government invests more into hate propaganda against them than into their integration assistance”. “We can only carry this out in good company and in co-operation with others: with other organisations in Hungary and Europe. And it is wonderful to know that we are not alone,” she added.
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