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In the course of visiting the Reception Centres, it was reported that the majority of centres
accommodate both the migrants who expressed their intention to seek for an asylum and
those who did not. Namely, since the Asylum Centre capacities have been filled, as the institutions providing primary accommodation and basic living conditions to the persons seeking
asylum, the migrants who expressed this will are directed by the competent police administrations to some of the reception centres reported by the Commissariat for Refugees and
Migrations notifies to have free accommodation places. Despite this, the Asylum Office
failed to register these persons, issue the identity cards for asylum seekers or enabled the
authorized officers to file the application for asylum. After the visit to the asylum centres in
Bogovađa, Tutin and Sjenica and the Reception Centre in Adaševci, the NPM recommended
to the Asylum Office to take legally prescribed measures for these persons, but these recommendations were not acted upon. The Border Police Administration justified such failure to
act upon the recommendations by the fact that they did not receive personal and other data
for these persons from the Commissariat for Refugees and Migrations, that these persons do
not stay in centres for longer than a couple of days, that there are no available interpreters
and that these persons predominantly, after being placed to reception centres, state to the
officers of the Commissariat that they do not want the asylum.
In the reporting period, about overall 144,000 migrants were recorded on the territory
of the Republic of Serbia with more than one third of minors (54.882) included in that
number. According to the data kept by the Ministry of Interior, 12,814 confirmations about
the expressed will to seek the asylum were received in 2016. Despite this fact, the Asylum
Office registered only 916 persons and the asylum requests were decided for overall 580
persons: 19 of them were approved, the subsidiary protection was provided to 23 persons
and 43 asylums were rejected, 39 denied, while the procedures for 466 persons have been
suspended.
Considering that the conditions for autonomous conducting of procedures and decision
making regarding the asylum applications and the cancellation of such right have not
been met, that the Asylum Office fails to take all the legally prescribed activities towards
all the persons who expressed their will to seek the asylum in the Republic of Serbia as well
as the large number of confirmations of the expressed wills, number of registered persons
and the number of those upon whose requests the decision has been adopted, the NPM
finds that the Republic of Serbia has still not established the efficient asylum system.
As early as in 2015, the NPM gave warning that the premises at „Nikola Tesla“ Airport accommodating foreigners who do not meet conditions for the entry into the country are not
appropriate for the stay of persons for more than a day and that there is no possibility for
these persons to stay in fresh air.105 Upon visiting the Border Police Station in the transit
zone of the Airport in 2016, it was found that this situation did not change and therefore,
recommendations were given to eliminate these deficiencies. The NPM was notified that in
November 2016, at the meeting of the Border Police Administration with the representatives
of “Nikola Tesla“ Airport a.d., all the details and aspects of developing the Project Design for
the adaptation of these premises have been discussed.
105 Report on the visit to „Nikola Tesla“ Airport pages 9 and 10, http://npm.rs/attachments/513_Izvestaj.pdf.
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