Crossing the northern border of Serbia is one of the most difficult stages for migrants on the Balkan route because of double fences, barbed wire, cameras and the risk of violent pushbacks. Migrants here often resort to the services of smugglers whose control in the region is omnipresent. Marlène Panara reports from northern Serbia.
Hashem drags his feet outside the main entrance of the Sombor migrant center. Wrapped in a long black down jacket with a hood that falls over his eyes, he kills time with one of his Syrian compatriots. He arrived here a year ago, in the fall of 2021, but his situation has remained unchanged.
Every year since 2016, this city in northwestern Serbia has witnessed the arrival of thousands of migrants who wish to reach the European Union via the Hungarian border, about twenty kilometers away. Hashem has tried dozens of times but so far, the young man has not managed to cross the double barbed wire fence that separates Hungary from Serbia.
The fence of over 160 kilometers has existed along the border between the two countries since 2017. Hungarian border guard vehicles patrol the space between the two barriers, on the lookout for the slightest movement. Thermal cameras connected to control screens adorn the fences. In the event of intrusion, the chances of migrants to continue their way to Hungarian territory are rare. Here, pushbacks are legion.
Also read: Rise in anti-migrant violence at Hungarian border, says NGO
According to the Asylum Seekers Protection Center (APC), an non-governmental organization (NGO) present in several migrant reception centers in Serbia, the Hungarian authorities have violently pushed back between 600 and 1,000 people every day since last spring.
'More smugglers than migrants'
Only one solution remains for migrants trapped behind the Hungarian wall: to turn to the smugglers. "Since last year, it has been impossible to cross the border alone. It has become much too complicated, so no one crosses without paying. Here, the smugglers control everything," says Betty Wang, from the NGO Collective Aid. According to the activist, "a lot of ‘little hands’ operate" in the official centers and the informal camps. Migrants lacking the money for the crossing participate in this traffic in order to pay for their own future passage.
In the center of Sombor, where nearly 800 migrants are currently staying in a shelter equipped to welcome only 120, "there are often more smugglers than migrants", confirms Waël*, who arrived a month earlier. The frail 22-year-old, who left Syria for Turkey after gaining his high school diploma, is one of them. His mission today is to accompany the migrants along the Hungarian border, and find a discreet and less guarded passage. He uses a GPS and instructions issued by a third party.
"My passage from Turkey to Bulgaria was expensive. Since my arrival here, I don't have any more money. I even owe a certain amount to people who helped me cross. Smuggling people into Hungary is not very lucrative, because you have to split the money with all the smugglers. But it will allow me to continue my journey one day," says the young man.
Once Waël has repaid his debts and accumulated enough savings to leave Serbia, he wants to go to Austria, where his brother lives.
Also read: Central European countries aim to block migrant routes
"I don't think we're doing anything wrong. We, at our level, are just helping people cross to the other side of the border," says Waël. Other links in the chain can also provide ladders – without which it is nearly impossible to scale the fence – and organize taxi transfers from reception centers to border areas.
In front of the center of Sombor, a ballet of taxis steadily flows even in broad daylight. The road is too narrow to accommodate everyone in front of the main entrance so a long line of cars forms at the edge of a small forest. The drivers of the cars only wait a few seconds before a small group of migrants rushes inside. The same scene occurs further east, in front of the migrant center in Subotica.
25 euros for a tent
To escape the control of smugglers in overcrowded centers, the majority of migrants chooses to settle in informal camps along the Hungarian border, far from the cities. The difficulty of crossing the border exists there too, and the disastrous living conditions push migrants to become smugglers. In Horgos, a village near Hungary, "you have to pay €25 to sleep in a tent," says Ahmed, a 23-year-old Algerian. He cannot afford it. "I sleep there every night," he says, pointing to a small wasteland near the camp.
In nearby Srpski Krstur, the control exercised by the smugglers is even stronger. For a year, it has been impossible for the inhabitants of the village to set foot on the small beach of the lake located below the houses. A migrant camp of nearly 200 destitute people who has formed there. Lookout posts guard and monitor the camp's inhabitants.
One person is responsible for monitoring the comings and goings from the city center, while another surveys the migrants who have left to buy food at the village grocery store, a ten-minute walk from the lake. Finally, another "guard" watches the surroundings from a field in a village near the camp. "He is posted there all day," says Beka, a forest ranger, staring from his terrace at a dark figure that appears in the distance.
For Beka, these patrols are a direct consequence of the fence on the border. "The fence is a disaster. Yes, it stopped the small local smugglers in the region, those who were taking advantage of migrants, but by blocking people here and forcing them to stay, the number of even bigger traffickers has exploded," he says.
'The more walls we build, the more smugglers there are'
On October 5, the police evicted the 200 people living in the camp. A video of the operation, posted on the website of the Ministry of the Interior, shows the police at work: the migrants, hands behind their necks, are expelled one after the other. Agents in military uniform search the tents and empty them of the belongings of the exiles. "A TV show," comments Beka, before assuring that these operations take place "every month" here. "And people return," he says while taking a sip of apricot-flavored rakija, the local alcohol.
Also read: Germany, EU pressure Serbia to curb illegal migration
Since several months, the Serbian government has been communicating in a light-hearted way about its work countering the smugglers. In the words of Interior Minister Aleksandar Vulin, the fight continues against "criminals and scum who traffic in human beings and earn money thanks to their pain and their suffering." Visiting Greece on October 9, Vulin once again denounced “criminal gangs, which have made enormous profits from human tragedy, trafficking in people, weapons and drugs since 2015."
A refrain that looks like a "desperate struggle," says Rados Djurovic, director of APC. "As long as this fence prevents people from crossing, there will be traffickers. This policy of hardening the border at all costs is completely counterproductive. The more walls you build, the more smugglers there are."
On July 9, the Hungarian President Viktor Orbán signed a decree establishing special border guard units, which could number up to 4,000 people. A few days later, a decree published in the Official Journal of Hungary announced that the double fence would be raised by an additional meter.
*The first name has been modified.