Serbian activists: Refugee conditions like WWII camps

By Talha Ozturk

BELGRADE, Serbia (AA) – Campaigners in Serbia on Tuesday claimed the conditions for many refugees caught up in the migrant crisis echoed those of people in WWII concentration camps.

Stasa Zajovic of the Women in Black group said the organization was using the UN-backed International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination to draw attention to what she described as a continuous wave of hate, racism and fascism at the institutional and social level.

"We are afraid that what happened during the Second World War, such as the concentration camps, barbed wire, is being repeated," Zajovic told reporters during a protest in Belgrade.

Participants in the action carried banners reading "Solidarity", "Brick by brick, wall by wall, we will break down Europe fortress", "The passion for freedom is stronger than all the borders", "Stop the arms trade, not refugees" and "freedom for all".

Zajovic said the international community had failed to respect human rights or conventions on refugees.

She added that refugees "stuck" in Serbia were looking for alternative ways to escape but were prevented from doing so by "huge funds invested in determining the external borders of Europe, instead of investing in human security".

The Women in Black visited migrants sheltering in a hangar at Belgrade’s railway station, who were marking the beginning of spring and the Afghan New Year.

There are currently about 7,000 registered migrants in Serbia. Six thousand are in centers, waiting hopefully for Hungary to open its borders, according to police sources.

Meanwhile, there are around 200 people at a makeshift migrant camp at Horgos, northern Serbia who have already been waiting over a week for Hungary --an EU member -- to allow them access.

Hungary was the first EU country to build a border fence to control the flow of migrants in early August 2016 before sealing its frontier with Serbia.