Off the wire
• News Analysis: Chinese presidency boosts G20 as possible new model of global governance: Italian experts  • Crowds snap up new iPhones in UAE  • Business confidence in Macedonia's manufacturing industry improves  • World No. 1 Liu into last four at China Open through seven-game thriller  • Defending champion Zhu crashes out of ITTF China Open  • Mazda recall over defected seal rings  • Nigeria negotiates with Boko Haram thrice on Chibok girls  • China seizes 1,000 tonnes of smuggled meat  • Taiwan county leaders delegation arrives for mainland visit  • Albanian PM pledges full support for agriculture sector  
You are here: 　 Home

Serbian army, police effectively oppose illegal migrations: defense ministry

Xinhua, September 17, 2016 Adjust font size:

Joint forces of Serbian army and police have so far stopped 7,500 illegal migrants to cross its southern border with Macedonia, the Serbian Defense Ministry said Saturday.

A press release reads that Defense Minister Zoran Djordjevic on Friday evening visited members of the joint police and armed forces in Sector A that secures part of Serbia's border towards Macedonia, and made sure that measures of control are effective.

"Results of these two systems (police and army) demotivate migrants from attempting to cross the state border and force them to find themselves another route to their final destination," Djordjevic said.

Reportedly, unit leader informed Djordjevic that the combined units of Serbian Army and the interior ministry managed to catch 50 people smugglers along with preventing 7,500 migrants from crossing the border.

During his visit, Djordjevic also toured positions in village of Cakanovac near the city of Presevo and the field near the village of Miratovac, where members of armed forces perform surveillance and discover attempts of illegal border crossings with patrols, control posts and ambushes.

"It is a pleasure to see that police and army systems function well together, directed towards the same goal," Djordjevic said.

During the recent visit of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban on Sept. 5, Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic announced that Serbia will not accept more illegal migrants, noting that the "situation is different from the beginning of the (migrant) crisis" as more than 80 percent of the migrants now are economic ones, coming from Afghanistan.

On that occasion it was announced that Hungarian army and police will assist their Serbian colleagues at Serbia's borders with both Bulgaria and Macedonia.

Last year, more than 700,000 migrants crossed Serbian territory on their way to the EU fleeing from armed conflicts in the Middle East and Africa, while some 5,000 new migrants are currently located in Serbia. Endit