German police have raided 26 premises across the country on Wednesday during an operation to dismantle human trafficking rings. Three suspects have been detained, who are alleged to have links to a criminal group run by a 65-year-old Kosovan national, who was also arrested.
Western Balkan workers are critical to some German industries, but a migration scheme may be greatly reduced. The CDU party wants to starkly reduce the number of Western Balkan workers coming to Germany.
Human rights organization Amnesty International is accusing the Croatian border police of an unprecedented degree of brutality in their treatment of migrants. The NGO referred to personal accounts of six Pakistanis and Afghans as well as statements by attending physicians.
In recent months there have been increasing reports, from humanitarian organizations and migrants themselves, about the mistreatment of migrants and refugees in Bosnia and Croatia. Now organizations like CARE International are calling on the international community to act.
According to an investigation by the magazine Balkan Insight, increasing numbers of migrants in Albania are being left hungry and frightened in state-run facilities. They are reduced to begging on the streets to get by.
The Serbian government on Saturday announced it is deploying troops to the country's border with Croatia in order to "secure" and "protect" citizens and the residents of three migrant camps situated there.
Bosnian authorities have begun to move hundreds of migrants from the border town of Bihac, transferring them into a nearby emergency tent camp, set up amid the coronavirus pandemic. The measures came in one day after local authorities on Monday cut off water supply to the Vucjak migrant camp in Bihac to put pressure on the government and NGOs to act quickly.
Because of the coronavirus crisis, foreign seasonal farmworkers cannot enter Germany right now. Could refugees and asylum seekers replace them? This is being debated among German politicians. According to the interior ministry, there are over 150,000 refugees looking for work.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said his country will in no way turn into a "parking lot" for tens or hundreds of thousands of migrants, following Turkey's decision to open its borders toward Greece to refugees on its soil.
Hundreds of migrants staged a demonstration on Saturday in which scuffles broke out with the Bosnian police. The migrants were protesting conditions at camps and their treatment by border authorities.
About 200 migrants gathered at Serbia’s border with Hungary on Thursday. Their demand: To be let into the European Union. But on Friday, they were bused to asylum centers further inside Serbia.
Germany desperately needs medical professionals, and many in the Western Balkans are just as keen on a way out of their home countries. Highly skilled migrants are rushing westwards in a seemingly unstoppable wave.