Migrants from Kosovo "find new route" in bid to reach EU

Migrants from Kosovo "find new route" in bid to reach EU

PRISTINA -- Ethnic Albanians continue to leave Kosovo in great numbers even after their departure via Merdare has been prevented.

Buses carrying immigrants headed for Hungary and on to other EU countries are no longer allowed to go via this administrative line crossing, located between Kosovo and central Serbia.

But late on Sunday, the media in Pristina are reporting, a large number of people, mostly in private cars, headed towards the Vrmici crossing with Albania, planning to travel to Montenegro, "and try and reach an EU country from there."

The reason the immigrants are using their cars is to avoid the possibility of being prevented from leaving Kosovo if they traveled on buses.

"I will find a way just so I don't have to stay in Kosovo. There can be no life without work. There is no hope for life here," a man who on Sunday headed toward Albania with his family has been quoted as saying.

"The number of citizens crossing into Albania has increased. They say they are traveling to Albania for pleasure, but they don't come back," a customs source was quoted as telling the Prizreni Press agency.

The Albanian language daily Blic writes that the number of "refugees" from the Prizren area is not known, but that "a large number of students in this region are no longer attending classes."

The Hungarian police in the meantime said they on Sunday arrested 937 migrants who crossed the border with Serbia illegally - 880 of them Albanians from Kosovo.

In the previous three days, more than 2,000 other illegal migrants, also mostly Kosovo Albanians, have been arrested in Hungary.