Migrants, Belgrade, Jan.1 2017(BETAPHOTO/EMIL VAS/MO)
The participants of a regional conference on confronting the problem of smuggling of migrants along the Western Balkan route, which began in Belgrade on Oct. 26, concurred that the problem of migrations was a burning regional problem that calls for a joint international response.
At the opening of the two-day regional conference titled “Security of People and Borders – Confronting Migrant Smuggling on the Western Balkan Route” in Belgrade, the participants described the results accomplished during the three-year project of the 484 working group.
The Serbian assistant minister for European integration, Miroslav Gacevic, stated that the burden of solving the migrant crisis must not “fall on Serbia’s shoulders alone,” but also that the statistics hide real people with dreams, strivings, as well as rights that have to be respected.
The assistant minister of the Ministry of Security of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Samir Rizvo, stated that migrations were a massive-scale operation of organized criminal groups. “More than 90 percent of migrants use smugglers’ services while crossing borders. The figures we have obtained by calculating the profit of crime groups from smuggling (of migrants) are huge. That is why the power and influence of such groups increase, and money with power lead to the next step – influencing democratic processes in a country,” Rizvo stated.
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