Balkans abusing EU migrants

BELGRADE: Amnesty International on Tuesday accused Balkan countries of mistreating migrants passing through their territories on the way to the European Union, saying people fleeing war were being “shamefully let down”.
“Thousands of refugees, asylum-seekers and migrants — including children — making dangerous journeys across the Balkans are suffering violent abuse and extortion at the hands of the authorities and criminal gangs,” the rights group said in a report.
Migrants fleeing war, poverty and persecution were being “shamefully let down by a failing EU asylum and migration system which leaves them trapped without protection in Serbia and Macedonia,” the London-based group said. The number of migrants and refugees from Syria, Afghanistan, Egypt, Eritrea, Iraq, Nigeria, Somalia, Sudan and Tunisia, travelling overland through the Balkans on their way to EU, has dramatically increased in recent years.
The number of people apprehended crossing the Serbia-Hungary border alone has risen by more than 2,500 percent since 2010 — from 2,370 to 60,602, Amnesty said.
The journey takes them by sea from Turkey to Greece and then overland across Macedonia and Serbia towards EU-member Hungary, a route that is increasingly used as it is considered less deadly than sailing across the Mediterranean from Libya. More than 1,800 people have been killed attempting to cross the Mediterranean this year alone, according to the UN.