The Belgrade Centre for Human Rights (BCHR) in 2023 continued extending free legal aid to refugees and asylum seekers in the Republic of Serbia (RS) within the project Support to Asylum Seekers in Serbia implemented with the support of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). In addition to providing free legal aid and representing asylum seekers and refugees before the relevant Serbian authorities and international institutions, BCHR’s team has been extending them assistance with a view to facilitating their integration in the country’s social, economic and cultural life.
This Report analyses the treatment of the asylum seekers and refugees in Serbia in the first six months of 2023, based on information the BCHR team obtained during their legal representation in the asylum procedure and provision of support in their integration, and during its field work. The Report also comprises data the BCHR collected through regular cooperation and communication with the state authorities and UNHCR. The statistical data cover the 1 January-30 June 2023 period. The Report has been prepared by the BCHR legal and integration team.
The Commissariat for Refugees and Migration (CRM) reported that 35,714 migrants andasylum seekers had been registered in the RS Asylum Centres (ACs) and Reception-Transit Centres (RTCs) in the first six months of 20231 – slightly le than 4,000 foreigners resided in the
CRM-run facilities over the same period last year. These numbers demonstrate that large numbers of migrants have continuously and persistently been moving along the Balkan Route.
Due to the ongoing international armed conflict between Russia and Ukraina, European Union (EU) Member States extended the duration of temporary protection granted refugees from Ukraine for at least one year. The RS Government followed suit and adopted a Decision Amending the Decision on the Provision of Temporary Protection in the Republic of Serbia to Persons Displaced from Ukraine of 17 March 2022 (2023 Decision) and extending temporary protection by one year, until 18 March 2024. A section of this report is devoted to the BCHR team’s analysis of the situation of temporary protection beneficiaries in the RS since the decision entered into force, as well as the advantages and challenges they faced in practice.
The deficiencies of the RS asylum system, which the BCHR has been alerting to for years, persisted in the reporting period. The greatest challenges in practice concerned the foreigners’access to the asylum procedure, the duration of the asylum procedure and the uncertainties of its outcome. The competent RS authorities still failed to fully comply with the relevant national and international rules, while the number of upheld asylum applications remained very low. As per the foreigners’ access to their integration-related rights, despite progress in some areas over the past few years, systemic solutions ensuring their long-term protection and effective access to all the rights they are guaranteed are still missing. The BCHR interviewed three of its clients in the process of integrating in Serbia’s society for this report, who agreed to publicly share their experiences from their countries of origin, the problems they faced and the situation they are now in. The BCHR thus continued with its practice of publishing the accounts of refugees, whose perspectives and sides of the story rarely reach the public.
Right to Asylum in the Republic of Serbia – Periodic Report for January – June 2023 is available HERE.
