Yesterday (03.04.2024), our team represented by Mersiha Smailovikj and Jasmina Golubovska held a
working meeting with Tineke Strik, Member of the European Parliament (Group of the Greens/European
Free Alliance) and her team, Aryaan Annabelle Bovenberg and Ruben Robbensom.
At the meeting, the main topic of discussion was migration and humanitarian refugee crisis on the
Southern and Northern border of North Macedonia. We presented the work of our field teams situated
within the transit-border reception centers Vinojug- Gevgelija and Tabanovce- Kumanovo and access to
human rights protection for refugees and people on the move.
Having in mind MEP Strik extensive work in the area of migration, we exchanged information and ideas
on improvement of the reception of people in migration and refugees in the transit- border centers as
well as issues such as push-backs, human rights violations. We presented our reports based on the field
team monitoring and documentation of migration since the beginning of the crisis in 2015.
We also focused on the past 2 months of violent push-backs on the Northern border with Serbia and
Southern border with Greece and the role of Frontex at this specific border.
As an organization advocating for the rights of migrants and refugees, we are pleased with the meeting
with MEP Strik and look forward to our cooperation in future.

Croatian police and officials are sharing sensitive information about migrants trying to enter the country through a WhatsApp group, an independent media outlet reported. Lighthouse Reports said it obtained 60 leaked screenshots and was able to identify 33 participants in an encrypted chat group used between August 2019 and February 2020.

“Croatia has always denied any knowledge of violent and illegal operations by its own police to force asylum seekers to leave the EU. We can now reveal that senior Croatian officials were part of a secret WhatsApp group where such activities were shared and encouraged,” Lighthouse Reports points out.

From there they reported that the group was used to exchange information about the arrests in Western Croatia of over 1,300 people, mainly of Afghan, Pakistani and Syrian nationality.

The news alleges that the WhatsApp group, called Corridor II-West, was used by the police to locate and apprehend irregular migrants. Photos of individuals with clearly visible faces were often shared.

“In certain cases, disturbing photos of individuals and sometimes of people forced to lie face down on the ground or of people who were apparently forced to take off their shoes while armed Croatian policemen stood over them were shared,” the news said.

The group was also used to exchange information for journalists visiting the border area.

Croatian officials neither confirm nor deny the existence of the WhatsApp group.

“We cannot know if these messages are authentic. Corridor II-West is not a covert operation. It is an action against migrant smugglers, intensively in the past five years,” stated the Minister of the Interior, Davor Božinović.

He denies allegations of mistreatment of migrants by the police.

The Ministry emphasized in a statement that the group formed on VatsApp does not represent a specific illegal situation.

EU member Croatia joined the visa-free Schengen zone this year and has repeatedly faced accusations of pushing back migrants at its borders.

Source: TRT Balkan

“At the beginning of Ramadan, we offered citizens the opportunity to donate for iftars in Gaza. In 2 weeks, 14,500 euros were collected and immediately sent to our partner organization IHH, from Turkiye, which immediately started implementing the project.”

During the month of Ramadan, the humanitarian NGO Legis from Skopje organizes a humanitarian action to collect donations for iftar for the population of Palestinian Gaza, which is affected by the Israeli attacks and where the humanitarian situation and living conditions are significantly difficult.

“At the beginning of Ramadan fasting, we offered citizens the opportunity to donate for iftars in Gaza. Within 2 weeks of the start of the action, 14,500 euros were collected and immediately sent to our partner organization IHH, from Turkiye, which immediately started implementing the project. Thanks to Turkey’s strong influence in preventing and mitigating conflicts and natural disasters in the world, permanent humanitarian corridors have been established everywhere in the world, including in Gaza. And that’s how our aid reaches its intended destination and is implemented smoothly together with the aid of the largest Turkish humanitarian organization”, Jasmin Redzepi, president of the non-governmental organization Legis, said in a statement to TRT Balkans.

As he informed, the aid contains a high-calorie liquid hot meal, authentic to the local cuisine, made of flour, meat, eggs, olive oil and water, which meets the needs of a dignified meal in the conditions of war.

Rexhepi explains that due to the difficult security conditions and destroyed infrastructure, food is cooked in makeshift outdoor kitchens to protect the lives of local aid workers serving Palestinians in Gaza.

He adds that the meals are being distributed in the remaining centers (former schools, to house internally displaced people from northern Gaza, mostly women and children.

“With the funds so far, it is planned to distribute 3,600 hot meals, and with the end of the humanitarian action to collect funds one week before the end of Ramadan, we will know how many more meals will be distributed in total,” says Redzepi. He points out that the non-governmental organization Legis has been involved in international humanitarian actions for Gaza since its foundation in 2009. “The penultimate humanitarian operation to distribute hot meals in Gaza was carried out in December 2023.”

“A year ago, Legis was the first humanitarian organization from Macedonia that sent humanitarian aid and its activists to the victims of the earthquake in Turkiye, and at the end of last Ramadan, they donated thousands of hot meals for iftar in Hatay, Kahramanmarash and Reyhanli,” recalls Redzepi.

Source: TRTBALKAN

https://ecrowd.mk

https://www.gofundme.com

Or to the following giro account:

270-0650443401-60 Halk Bank

or

210065044340153 NLB Bank AD Skopje

let’s remind the activities from Ramadan 2023

Videos appearing to show groups of men stripped of their clothing in near-freezing temperatures and being forced back from Serbia into North Macedonia are evidence of escalating mistreatment of migrants at European borders, according to human rights groups.

Two videos shown to the Guardian by Legis, a North Macedonian NGO, show a line of semi-naked men on a stretch of road near the Serbian-North Macedonian border.

Legis says that the videos were filmed by a local person near the village of Lojane, close to the Serbian border, and handed to them on 10 February. The Guardian has not independently verified the videos.

The NGO claims the incident was the second of two abusive and “degrading” pushbacks over a 24-hour period, when it claims more than 50 people were forced to strip naked or down to their underwear by the Serbian authorities before being forced back into North Macedonia.

Legis says its local staff later managed to talk to the men, who identified themselves as Syrians.

Jasmin Redjepi, president of Legis, said the “disturbing and degrading” pushbacks came shortly after an EU-Serbian border cooperation summit, aimed at strengthening the Serbian border against people-smuggling operations.

“These incidents occur when the EU prepares restrictions for migrants on the route, and in this case just days after an EU-Serbia border cooperation summit. We then see the direct impact and consequences,” Redjepi said.

Although there have been reports of migrants being stripped of their clothing at other European borders, Redjepi says that this is the first time this has been reported on the border between Serbia and North Macedonia.

Rados Djurovic, executive director at Asylum Protection Centre in Serbia said that its staff had seen an increase in accounts of pushbacks from Serbia to North Macedonia since the beginning of the year. “We can say it is now a regular practice,” he said.

Dunja Mijatović, commissioner for human rights at the Council of Europe, said: “Recent reports of alleged pushbacks by Serbian police officers at the border with North Macedonia, characterised by ill- and degrading treatment and robbery of migrants, possibly including those attempting to seek asylum, require prompt and effective investigation by state authorities.”

“These incidents are not only disturbing, but also indicative of a wider, worrying trend among Council of Europe member states,” she said. “These actions appear to violate the European convention on human rights, which prohibits refoulement and collective expulsions, as well as other international standards which require ensuring genuine and effective access to asylum for those who seek it.”

Mijatović said the abuse that appeared to be happening on the North Macedonian border was indicative of mistreatment of vulnerable people on borders across Europe, calling the widespread phenomenon of illegal pushbacks an “urgent pan-European problem”.

“What I have observed and warned about is that migrants have been subjected to treatment that might constitute degrading treatment or torture in several European countries for years, in clear violation of states’ human rights obligations,” she said.

A report by 11.11.11, a Belgian NGO, estimated that more than 346,000 forced pushbacks occurred at Europe’s external borders in 2023.

Redjepi called for “an investigation by the Ombudsman offices of North Macedonia and Serbia, and for human rights monitors to be permitted to observe police operations, ensuring violence and dehumanisation cannot continue in the dark.”

Serbian police did not respond to requests for comment.

Source: The Guardian