"Illegal migration to be tackled through joint efforts"

"Illegal migration to be tackled through joint efforts"

KELEBIJA -- The problem of illegal migration facing Serbia and Hungary is also affecting several EU member states, "so they should join forces to solve it."

That is what Serbian Police Director Milorad Veljovic told reporters on Wednesday.

Veljovic toured the Kelebija border crossing between Serbia and Hungary with Chief Commissioner of the Hungarian Police Karoly Papp, with whom he agreed to step up activities aimed at foiling attempts at crossing the border illegally and determining the motive behind this migration.

Pointing to the good cooperation between the Serbian and Hungarian police on the control of the joint border, Veljovic said that 20 police officers will arrive in Serbia from Germany on Thursday, with vehicles equipped with thermo visual cameras.

"Austrians will arrive soon, and they will be engaged at the crossing toward Macedonia, where there is also high pressure of migrants," he said.

Veljovic said that around 50 gendarmes are also engaged at the Hungarian border crossing, together with members of the Serbian and Hungarian border police, who already today caught nine people attempting to cross the border unlawfully.

He noted that previously illegal migrants had mostly been poor, the people who could not make ends meet; then recently there was a rise in the number of middle class people, and now there are even highly educated people among migrants.

Children account for 40 percent of the total number of migrants, he said.

"Whether this is only an economic problem- we need to ascertain this and resolve the problem together," Veljovic said.

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