Serbian Police Migrant Smuggling Raids Questioned

Serbia's police led by Interior Minister Aleksandar Vulin have recently conducted several high-profile actions, hotly followed by the media, tackling refugee and migrant smuggling.

On Sunday, police said they discovered an illegal migrant camp near the borders with Hungary and Romania and detained suspected people smugglers.

However, Robert Kozma, from Group 484, an NGO that deals with migration, told BIRN that he suspected these actions were more aimed at boosting the media credibility of the police and other institutions than systemically tackling criminal networks.

"If there is no prosecution of the main persons involved in the organisation of a smuggling chain, we cannot but have the impression that this is more a PR action rather than a systemic approach," Kozma told BIRN.

He also warned that, in the fight against smuggling, care must be taken not to encourage the stigmatisation of migrants and asylum seekers, and further "pushing" them to the margins of society, or creating a perception in society that all migrants are perpetrators of crimes.

"The fight against human trafficking must go hand in hand with the construction of a functional asylum system, an integration procedure for persons granted refugee status, and the regulation of the rights and obligations of persons who may not be granted refugee status but who may be regulated by other legal instruments," Kozma said.

In June, BIRN published an investigation into the lucrative smuggling operations that keep migrants and refugees moving across the Balkans, uncovering links between certain smugglers and the Serbian police and security services.

Serbian institutions did not officially react, but, after the investigation, the Serbian police, often followed...