BALKAN ROUTE: Decrease in Number of People Using Balkan Route ― More Deaths in Drina River on Serbia-Bosnia & Herzegovina Border ― Frontex Officers Intimidated Into Silence Over Migrant Abuse in Bulgaria ― Immigration ‘Most Significant Challenge’ for C…

• The European Union Coast Guard and Border Agency (Frontex) has reported a major decrease in the number of irregular border crossings along the Balkan Route
• At least 12 people have died while trying to cross the Drina river that forms part of the border between Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) as human rights activists and humanitarians report an increase in the number of dangerous crossings.
• Frontex officers who have been deployed on Bulgaria’s border with Türkiye have reportedly been intimidated into silence on abuse against migrants committed by Bulgarian border guards.
• Croatian President Zoran Milanović has described immigration as the biggest challenge facing his country while a senior Bosnian official has described immigrants as a “threat to security”.
• Human rights organisations in Serbia have criticised the government’s closure of three migrant reception centres close to the country’s borders with Bulgaria, Croatia and Romania.
• Authorities in Slovenia have reported a slight decrease in the number of irregular arrivals in the country.

The European Union Coast Guard and Border Agency (Frontex) has reported a major decrease in irregular border crossings along the Balkan Route. According to data published by Frontex in August 2024, there were 12,407 detections along the route in the first seven months of 2024. This represented 75% decrease from the same period in 2023. The overall number of irregular border crossings into the EU January-July 2024 fell by 36% to 113,400, and the decrease on the Balkan route represented the most significant of the six main routes. Elsewhere, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) reported that 392 people had gone missing along the Balkan route since 2014. According to data published by the IOM’s Missing Migrants Project, 31 people, including two children, have gone missing so far in 2024 (compared to 47 (3) in the whole of 2023 and a high of 64 (19) in 2019). Commenting on the data, Nihad Suljic from the NGO SOS Balkanroute said: “This is yet another result of closed border policies. If you close borders, you’ll have smugglers, crime and victims”.

Despite the reported decrease in the number of people travelling along the Balkan route, human rights activists and humanitarians have noticed an increase in the number of people trying to cross the Drina river that forms part of the border between Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). According to Darko Jovanovic from the Red Cross Society of Bosnia and Herzegovina, his team treated 800 people and distributed almost 3,000 meals in the first eight months of 2024 on the Bosnian side of the river. Commenting on the situation, Nihad Suljic said: “When it comes to migration, Bosnia is once again the centre of attention,” adding: “But unlike in the pandemic years and the period immediately preceding it, the human traffickers now seem to be perfectly integrated into the structures”. The Bosnian border police told DW that it had “registered 5,477 people who have illegally crossed or tried to cross the border” and that “in most cases, human traffickers, who bring people across the Drina either in private cars or with boats, are also involved”.

On 12 August, at least 12 people, including a nine-month-old baby and her mother, died while trying to cross the Drina river. According to the head of BiH’s water rescue team, Vladan Rankic, approximately 30 people had been trying to cross the river when their boat capsized in the early hours of the morning close to the town of Ljubovija in Serbia. Commenting on the tragedy, the United Nations Refugee Agency’s (UNHCR) office in BiH X posted that it and ECRE member organisation Vaša prava BiH had been providing “much-needed psychosocial support and legal advice to the survivors” and that “safe pathways need to be introduced to avoid needless loss of life”. The Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) has reported that “the bodies of at least 30 migrants were found in the Drina river in 2023 alone”.

Frontex officers who have been deployed on Bulgaria’s border with Türkiye have reportedly been intimidated into silence on abuse against migrants committed by Bulgarian border guards. According to BIRN, Frontex documents show that two officers who witnessed Bulgarian border guards forcing a group of five people to crawl through a hole in the fence on the Bulgaria-Türkiye border were “instructed” not to file a report but did so anyway, after which they reported feeling “hunted” and expressed “fears about their safety”. As a result, Frontex removed the two officers “for their own protection”. Shortly after the incident, which took place in December 2023, Frontex’s fundamental rights officer (FRO), Jonas Grimheden, wrote to the head of Bulgaria’s border police, Anton Zlatanov, to inform him that Frontex officers had “directly witnessed violations committed by Bulgarian officers” and that his office had collected “numerous credible accounts related to pressure used by Bulgarian border guards against Frontex deployed officers not to report their observations”. A separate FRO document noted that Frontex officers “often felt helpless and inadequate to react, citing also language barriers, short decision-making times and feeling vulnerable vis-à-vis the Bulgarian officers”. Based on its analysis of eight serious incident reports (SIRs) covering 16 border interventions undertaken September-December 2023 and taken from the testimonies of six officers from three different teams, the FRO concluded that “all these Frontex officers understood that this request [to avoid reporting fundamental rights violations] was linked to the Bulgarian officers’ attempt to cover up their actions and likely the migrants’ collective expulsion”. Commenting on the allegations, a Frontex spokesperson told BIRN: “Frontex is enhancing its instructions and protocols to ensure that our officers are not just observers but are empowered to act when confronted with situations that require intervention to protect fundamental rights”. The Bulgarian border police said: “No Bulgarian border police officers have been sanctioned in connection with the issued reports as there has been no proven excess of authority,” adding” We strive to minimise incidents at the border (…) Since January 1 2024, there have been no serious incidents relating to human rights violations by the Bulgarian border police”. According to data compiled by ECRE member organisation the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee, there were 9,897 pushbacks involving 174,588 people along Bulgaria’s borders with Greece and Türkiye in 2023.

Croatian President Zoran Milanović has described immigration as the biggest challenge facing his country. Speaking during a special session of the Jelsa Municipal Council on the island of Hvar on 15 August, Milanović said: “the arrival of foreigners is a reality and at the same time the biggest challenge Croatia faces”. Acknowledging that Croatia’s population was declining, he said that it was “unrealistic” to expect that it would increase “in the coming period”. He also stated that the process of people arriving in Croatia should be “strictly defined, measured and observed from all sides with the aim of making them learn the language and accept the local culture”, whilst explicitly excluding religion. Milanović’s comments stand in stark contrast to those made by the head of BiH’s Service for Foreigners’ Affairs, Zarko Laketa, who described migrants as a security threat. According to ANSA, in an interview about reported violence between armed smuggling groups in BiH, Laketa said: “I think that migrants have become a real threat to security,” adding: “the European Union needs to do something to help countries along the Balkan route fight this growing violence and threat to security”.

Human rights organisations in Serbia have criticised the government’s closure of three migrant reception centres in the country. According to the German Catholic News Agency (KNA), three centres situated close to Serbia’s borders with Bulgaria, Croatia and Romania were closed in late July/early August, the latest in a series of closures that started in October 2023. According to Alice Pezzutti from the NGO No Name Kitchen, the closures were a “strategy to prevent people from entering Serbia”. “People will find another strategy to move. People will not stop moving,” she added. Commenting on the situation on 29 August, ECRE member organisation the Asylum Protection Center (CZA) X posted: “the camps in Subotica, Sombor, Kikinda and Šid are closed and refugees are increasingly under the control of smugglers, remaining with no access to protection but with increased safety and health risks”. CZA also reported that, on 25 August, 80 people had been prevented from crossing the Hungary-Serbia border, 26 people had been pushed back to Serbia and at least 300 people were waiting on the Serbian side of the border.

Authorities in Slovenia have reported a slight decrease in the number of irregular arrivals in the country. According to the Slovenian Press Agency (STA), 25,786 irregular migrants were registered in the first seven months of 2024. This represented a 4% decrease from the equivalent period in 2023. At the same time, there was a significant increase in the number of Syrians entering the country irregularly (8,720 compared to 723 January-July 2023). In addition, a “migrant processing facility” that can accommodate up to 100 people at a time has been opened in Obrezje close to the Slovenia-Croatia border. Elsewhere, ANSA has reported that 14 people, including nine suspected people smugglers, were arrested at the Italy-Slovenia border between 8 July and 10 August.

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