Declaring a crisis and ordering army soldiers to the southern and northern borders is too early for a situation that can be helped through a better organization by the government, comment experts on the decision of the government to heighten control at the borders.
Jasmin Redzepi, activist and humanitarian work of the NGO Legis, says the decision by the government to declare an emergency situation because of the increased influx of migrants is unnecessary and inadequate.
-I think this measure is unnecessary and inadequate because we have been dealing effectively with the number of transiting migrants . The Ministry of Interior (MVR) needed to make faster the process of giving out transit documents to the migrants, while the railroad authorities should have provided more trains and wagons, say on every three hours. This would have decreased the number of people and large crowds wouldn’t have formed. The measure is inadequate because these people don’t want to remain here and thus far no migrants have stayed. This would be expected if Serbia decided to close the border. This problem could have been solved in other ways- commented Jasmin Redzepi.
The Red Cross did not want to comment on the government’s decision. From the organization they say they do everything in their power to help the transiting migrants.
-I cannot comment on the declaring of an emergency situation because our job is to help the migrants. Due to the emerging situation, we will reorganize. We have 30 volunteers on the ground since yesterday and we will bring overnight volunteers as well. We are monitoring the situation. There should be a better organization at the place where migrants enter the country. This weekend there were more than 3000 new entrants, that is not a small number. In my opinion we are going to deal with the situation- said Suzana Tuneva Paunovska of the Red Cross.
