Smugglers’ Truck Capsizes in North Macedonia, Injuring 35 Migrants

Some 35 migrants were injured on Wednesday night when the truck they were traveling in capsized on the road from the village of Udovo to the town of Gevgelija, close to North Macedonia's border with Greece.

According to the Interior Ministry, the injured migrants were kept in the cargo area of the truck that capsized. A total of 49 migrants was discovered at the site of the accident.

Two of the injured migrants have serious injuries, while the rest were lightly injured, the Strumica region police spokesperson, Aleksandra Trajanova, told media.

"According to statements taken from the migrants, they are all from Syria, since some of them had travel documents and some did not," Trajanova said.

Medical teams from the nearby towns of Gevgelija, Kavadarci and Negotino were called in to intervene and many of the injured were taken to these towns' hospitals.

The two seriously injured people have been transferred to the capital, Skopje, where doctors have reported that their condition was "stable". The rest, the authorities said, were transferred to a migrant transit centre.

The Interior Ministry said it received a report about the accident at 6.10 pm, adding it was a big truck with a trailer attached, with licence plates from Skopje. The driver escaped, the ministry said.

Although the so-called "Balkan migrant route", of which North Macedonia was part, was officially closed in 2016, the flow of migrants and refugees from countries like Afghanistan, Pakistan and Syria through the region has never dried up.

Some alternative routes through the Balkans have been found, but a large number of people still use the original route from Turkey to Greece and then North Macedonia and Serbia towards Central and Western European.<...

Continue reading on: