More than 1,000 migrants mostly from Syria and Iraq are currently stranded at Tabanovce, the Macedonia-Serbian border, because the Serbian authorities refuses to allow transit for the migrants and further along the Balkan route, the Ministry of Interior (MOI) told “Meta”.
Meanwhile, at the Southern border, according to information from the Greek side, apparently additional restrictions have been applied to Syrian nationals, meaning they are not permitted to enter Macedonian if they don’t come from areas in Syria that are not affected by military action.
From the MOI, in response to this new information said that many countries along the Balkan route have introduced such restrictions, and that Macedonia will also be forced into imposing the ban on entry of migrants from certain areas of Syria and Iraq.
“We consider Iraq and Syria to be unsafe, however if one of the countries on the route introduces new restrictions, we will be forced to consider the possibility of applying these restrictions on the Macedonian-Greek border, including a ban on entry of migrants from certain areas. The criteria of other countries on the route will depend on the criteria that will be applied to the Macedonian-Greek border. After all, at the moment on the Macedonian-Serbian border, there are over 1,000 migrants stuck, mostly from Syria and Iraq, we do not know for what reason they were not granted transit through the Republic of Serbia”, said the MOI to “Meta”.
