20.11.2015 Preševo & Miratovac

People coming from Macedonia arrive by train in the Macedonian town of Tabanovce. From there they have to walk around 4 kilometers to the village of Miratovac in Serbia. There is a paper check by police on this track. From Miratovac the refugees can take a free bus to Preševo. The busses go from 07:00 (7 a.m.) until 23:00 (11 p.m.). During the night people can walk the 8 kilometers to Preševo or take a taxi (around 5 Euro).

In Miratovac there is no support from the state. Volunteers provide some tea, water, food and clothes for the migrants who wait for the bus to Presevo. In Preševo all the migrants need to register and get a document/paper that allows them to stay for 72 hours in Serbia. After a decline of arrivals and some adjustments in the procedure, now the registration takes up to 3 hours. Then the people can decide to either take a bus (35 €, takes around 6 hours) or a train (15 €, takes around 10 hours and goes 3 times per day) to the Serbian-Croatian border town of Sid.

We were told that only Syrian, Iraqi and Afghan people are allowed to move on in Preševo. Today we didn‘t hear any reports of migrants from other countries in Presevo – because Macedonia does not let people in their country if they are not from Syria, Iraq or Afghanistan. Yesterday there had been 48 migrants in Preševo who were sent back to Macedonia.

Also the volunteers in Miratovac told us of 20 people they met yesterday who came back from Preševo because they were not accepted there and should go back to Macedonia.