On World Refugee Day, marked on 20 June, the Belgrade Centre for Human Rights alerts to the plight of refugees, exacerbated by the global COVID-19 pandemic. Fleeing from conflict and persecution, refugees have been facing substantial limitations of their fundamental rights as numerous states introduced a number of restrictive anti-COVID-19 measures. According to UNHCR data, nearly 80 million people, almost half of them children, are displaced globally due to persecution or conflict.
Over the past year, refugees living in Serbia have had difficulty accessing the asylum procedure. Their freedom of movement has been restricted and they had difficulty exercising some of their integration-related rights. Refugees living in Serbia largely depend on support extended by civil society organizations, while systemic solutions and efficient coordination among state authorities are lacking. Some headway has, however, been made: the state has recognised refugees and asylum seekers as a vulnerable category and included them in the COVID-19 vaccination process.
In 2020, 144 people applied for asylum in Serbia, almost half as many as in 2019. The difference can be ascribed to the decline in the number of newly-arrived refugees, migrants and asylum seekers, as well as the COVID-19 pandemic. The Asylum Office upheld 29 asylum claims in 2020, bringing the number of successful asylees to 194 since the asylum system was established in 2008.
At the same time, the problems of refugees and IDPs, who fled the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, have not been resolved. Assessments are that over 26,500 of them still have the status of refugees.
The Belgrade Centre for Human Rights has been extending free legal aid to refugees and asylum seekers since 2012. It has been representing them before domestic and international bodies, supporting their integration in Serbian society and lobbying for the improvement of the status of all refugees in Serbia. Through its activities and its ongoing online campaign #MiLjudiZajednoMožemoViše (We People Can Do More Together), the BCHR has been endeavouring to raise public awareness of the importance of refugee integration, and the significance of social cohesion and multiculturalism for bridging the gap between communities and creating a more tolerant society in which everyone has the chance to live their life in dignity.
