Number of asylum seekers increases drastically in December

BELGRADE- Last year, about 16,500 people had the intention to seek asylum in Serbia, and December saw a drastic increase in the number of asylum seekers, with 3,400 people requesting asylum that month, it was said at a conference organized by the Serbian Commissariat for Refugees and Migration in Belgrade on Thursday.

Most migrants come from Syria and Afghanistan, it was said at the meeting and stated that there were about 2,200 asylum seekers in November and about 2,300 in October 2013, while in December 2013, the number had been a little over 600.

Stressing that our obligations concerning asylum issues were growing, Serbia's Commissioner for Refugees Vladimir Cucic stated that Serbia was a country of transit for those people and only a few of them waited long enough for the whole procedure to be completed, i.e., for them to remain in Serbia.

"To not have asylum seekers outside the asylum centers during 2014 was a great success for us," Cucic said, pointing out that the Commissariat was able to accommodate 770 asylum seekers in the five asylum centers that it had in Banja Koviljaca, Bogovadja, Sjenica, Tutin and Krnjaca.

Cucic said we would soon need additional capacity and at least one more center for housing asylum seekers given the events in Syria and other war-affected areas.

Cucic said that the Commissariat had launched one more big job for the implementation of the Regional Housing Program in Serbia, which should house 16,780 of the most endangered refugee families in Serbia.

The job is a joint program undertaken by Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro and Croatia that should provide permanent housing to approximately 27,000 most endangered refugee families, or to about 74,000 people in the region.