Serbia and Macedonia have begun limiting the passage of migrants across their borders to Syrians, Iraqis and Afghans, UNHCR stated on Thursday.
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The move was triggered after Slovenia started returning people it considered to be “economic migrants”.
Hundreds of thousands of people pass through the Balkan route, sailing from Turkey to the Greek Aegean islands, then crossing the mainland, Macedonia, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia and Austria.
The U.N. refugee agency says three Balkan countries shut their borders overnight to migrants from nations that are not directly engulfed in war.
“Over the past days more and more people are arriving for whom we have reason to believe that they are economic migrants”, spokesman Drago Menegalija said in a written statement to Reuters.
Croatia’s interior minister says the country has refused to take back 162 people who were rejected by neighboring Slovenia as economic migrants.
Serbia has turned back to Macedonia a few 200 migrants and Macedonia has not let them in, she said.
UNHCR spokeswoman Melita Sunjic said Serbia had implemented a new approach from late Wednesday: “As of 6 p.m. yesterday evening, Serbia started turning back (to Macedonia) all but Syrians, Iraqis and Afghans”.
Sunjic says, “so, they are stuck on no-men’s land”.
“We are not a country where they (migrants and refugees) come to stay, they are only passing through Serbia, and that will remain so”, said Vulin.
The Macedonian nongovernmental organization LEGIS said the country was also allowing only Iraqis, Afghans, and Syrians into the country. Slovenia also said it has closed its border for the so-called economic migrants. A further 2,500 people are waiting at a camp nearby that provides temporary shelter for those heading north through the Balkans.
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