Another group of migrants was hurt in a knife fight near the border.
Three migrants were injured in a knife fight on Monday night in Šid, a town in Serbia near the border with Croatia where reception centres are located. Almost at the same time, authorities prevented the illegal crossing of the Croatian border by migrants hidden in truck trailers, reports Večernji List on January 31, 2017.
The fight between four Algerian migrants resulted in injuries, and three migrants were sent to a hospital in Sremska Mitrovica, while the main perpetrator of the incident escaped with a stab wound on his arm before he received first aid.
Serbia’s Customs Administration reported that, at the Šid-Tovarnik border crossing, it prevented an attempt of illegal entry into the territory of the European Union by nine migrants hidden in truck trailers.
Customs officers found six migrants from Afghanistan in the cargo area of a Bulgarian truck, among women leather bags, shoe-making material and carpentry. The minors, aged between 15 and 17, enter the cargo area after someone helped them cut a customs cable which was afterwards affixed with glue.
Around noon, they examined two trucks with Montenegrin license plates which were loaded with detergents and were on their way to Germany. In the cargo area, they found two men from Afghanistan, aged 22 and 30. Among pallets with detergents and cleaning agents in the second truck they found a 25-year-old man from Pakistan.
As many times before, the illegal immigrants took advantage of a break which many truck drivers make at rest areas near the border crossing, in order to hide among the goods and in that way gain entry to Croatia and the European Union. According to the records of relevant state bodies, in Serbia there are currently 3,055 minors who have fled from wars trying to reach Western European countries. They account for 47 percent of the total migrant population.
Last year, due to the increasing number of migrants and incidents in which they participated, citizens of Šid and surrounding areas launched an initiative to relocate reception centres from that municipality.
