Serbia Pins Coronavirus Blame on Returning Serbs ‘Concealing Infection’

Vucic urged those Serbs who had left to return "to their ancestral homes and build a future here," promising special incentives to bring them back and help tackle the demographic crisis afflicting Serbia and much of the rest of Central and Eastern Europe.

Fast forward 12 months, and thousands of Serbian gasterbeiters from across Europe are returning to Serbia, many of them left jobless or furloughed by the COVID-19 pandemic and the economic lockdown it has triggered. But they face a very different welcome.

"Some of them have come out of quarantine, some of them knew they were infected" but came to Serbia to be treated "for free," Vucic told a news conference on March 21. "So don't ask yourselves why we have a larger number of infected people."

Just how many Serbian citizens have returned to the country since the start of the crisis is hard to tell. Vucic says some 317,000 came back between March 5 and 21.

They find themselves scapegoated by a government that critics accuse of dangerously downplaying the seriousness of the initial outbreak and significantly trailing other countries in testing. With the number of confirmed cases now rising rapidly, authorities are pointing the finger of blame elsewhere.

"We can't do without the 'Others', those who are different from us, who are guilty," said sociologist Ratko Bozovic. They, he said, are perceived as having "flown away, so that, patriotically speaking, they are not as close to us as we are to ourselves."

"It is an unprecedented scandal what's being said about these poor people, who for sure aren't returning from some rosy situation where they came from."

Concern over low rate of testing

A disinfection worker cleans an ambulance in front of...