47 searched in order to find identity documents, nor their personal data entered in the official registers. In general, they are verbally instructed by a police officer to go independently to one of the centers for asylum seekers. It is incomprehensible that competent authorities permit to thousands of migrants who do not possess or hide personal documents, to travel freely and without any limitations, through the territory of Republic of Serbia, without establishing their identity, searching and registering them properly. These people are in the majority of cases registered by the police after they arrive to one of the centers for asylum seekers and apply for accommodation. In that way, police officers fail to exercise in a timely manner the police powers, as well as the measures and activities foreseen by the Law on Protection of State Border and the Law on Foreigners, in order to remove such persons from Serbia, or to place them in a Shelter for foreign persons under close police surveillance. From the assumed large number of irregular migrants only dozen of them are accommodated in the Shelter, as a consequence of the above mentioned. NPM draws attention to cases when family of migrants who illegally cross the border is found in the territory of Serbia, and a Misdemeanor Court imposes a sentence of imprisonment for a period of several days to the father of the family, during which time the mother with the children is forced to cope with the situation, until her husband is out of imprisonment. It is extremely discouraging that some of the mothers with their children find shelter at the city dump, and even in the tombs of the local cemetery in Subotica. NPM has made reports144 on the visits of the asylum centers, identifying irregularities in work, especially in terms of the necessity to provide accommodation and care for all persons who arrive at the center, especially the families with children. During the visits, in nearby woods next to the Asylum Center in Bogovađa, averagely over 200 unattended migrants were found. NPM discovered that the problem is not only related to persons present in the country who expressed their intention to seek asylum in Serbia, i.e. providing them accommodation in the asylum centers, yet the essential problem lies in the existence of numerous shortcomings in the work of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in relation to the existing migrants. Police officers, in general, fail to search, identify immediately, photograph and take biometric data (fingerprints, etc.) from the migrants, as well as to escort them to the Shelter for foreign persons, or, upon their expressed intention to seek asylum in Serbia, to some of the asylum centers. Besides, the Asylum Office as a unit with technical and qualified personnel resources which is able to accomplish a purpose intended by the law, has not been formed yet. The result of indicating the numerous shortcomings regarding the conduct of the competent authorities and the protection of the rights of asylum seekers by the NPM, UNHCR and civil society organizations Belgrade Centre for Human Rights and Group 484, a Project Group of the Ministry of Interior was formed in order to improve the treatment of asylum seekers, i.e. draft the new Law on Asylum. Confident that the results of the Project Group of the Ministry of Interior will not occur in the near future, on the basis of numerous illegalities and irregularities detected during the reporting period, the NPM submitted a systematic act, to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Commissariat for Refugees and Migration (the Commissariat) containing the 29 reasoned recommendations for eliminating deficiencies and improving the treatment of the asylum seekers, as well as all persons who are considered irregular migrants145. Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Commissariat informed the NPM and gave with this regard a series of public statements, in which they stated that they accept the recommendations of the NPM. 144 NPM report on the visit to the Asylum Center in Bogovadja, No. 71-59/13 and case No. 12-2255/13. 145 Case No. 75-6/14, list of 29 recommendations see under ANNEX I/III-5.