Lawyers’ Committee for Human Rights – YUCOM
Human Rights House
Kneza Miloša 4, 11103 Belgrade, Serbia
Project Progress and Financial Report – No 3.
Date of the visit: 23/12/2015
Place of the visit: Belgrade, Republic of Serbia
(Parks around the Main bus station in Belgrade and Mixer House)
Project: “Aid to refugees and migrants – from legal aid to conditions assessment”
Persons responsible for reporting: Ana Janković Jovanović and Momčilo Živadinović
Project Progress
General impressions:
On December 23rd 2015 a team consisting of Momcilo Zivadinovic and Ana J. Jovanovic, accompanied by a translator for Farsi, visited places where refugees unofficially gathered in Belgrade. We visited the parks around the Belgrade bus station and the Miksaliste Aid Center.
About forty refugees/migrants were present at each of the three places we visited, the park in front of the Faculty of Economics, the park by the arrival platforms and the Miksaliste Aid Center. We’ve talked to nine of them, eight males and one female of various age categories, originating from Afghanistan and Iran. Their education profiles were diverse, ranging from those with no formal education to those who graduated from college. All the people we’ve talked to were Muslims.
They came to Serbia from Bulgaria. All of our respondents wished to continue their journey towards their desired destination, most often Italy, Germany or Great Britain. They cited cars, busses and trains as a means of transport to Serbia and also say they had to travel on foot over the course of their journey. Based on the information we received, their expenses to reach Serbia ranged from 1,500.00 to 7.000,00 EUR.
Vulnerable groups / torture victims
Several of the refugees/migrants we’ve talked to complained about police brutality in Bulgaria, one of whom was jailed there for 3 to 4 days. Some of the respondents from Iran and Afghanistan told us they’ve had problems with the state police in their country of origin, as well as with the Taliban and ISIS.
Project Progress Report No3 23122015
