44 Republic of Serbia, however, police officers despite that fact issued them these certificates of the expresses intention to seek asylum (almost all of those persons left the territory of the Republic of Serbia in a two-day time). By the actions of competent authorities of the Republic of Serbia, a wrong impression was made about the number of persons expressing their intention to seek asylum. At the same time, it took a lot of time to have these certificates issued, and the NPM stressed this fact.106 After the recommendations of the NPM, in the Reception Centre in Preševo107 the procedure of issuance of certificates of expressed intention to seek asylum was expedited, and at the Airport “Nikola Tesla”108 all persons who were issued certificated of the expressed intention to seek asylum were being photographed and fingerprinted, which ensured that all migrants / refugees entering the territory of the Republic of Serbia were registered. Despite the fact that the Government of the Republic of Serbia had adopted the Decision on issuance of the certificate upon arrival to the territory of the Republic of Serbia to those migrants coming from the countries where their lives had been put under danger109, in the course of 2015, not a single certificate was issued in line with the mentioned Decision. With such a certificate, persons may stay in Serbia for 72 hours, and may use bank services, stay in the facilities providing accommodation and get necessary medical aid. Despite a large number of the issued certificates of the expressed intention to seek asylum in the Republic of Serbia, in the course of 2015, only 699 persons were registered, and 586 persons submitted the application for asylum, and 16 of them were granted refuge, and 14 subsidiary protection, applications for asylum of 29 persons were rejected, 11 persons were denied their application for asylum, and the procedure was discontinued for 547 persons. In 2015, the total of 11,360 persons (total capacities of the asylum centres were 1,060 places) were received in the asylum centres. Out of that number, the total number of women amounted to 2,294, accompanied minors to 1,284 and unaccompanied minors to 1,278. At the same period, the total of 10,615 persons left asylum. It can also be concluded from the aforementioned that persons transiting Serbia did not have real intention to seek asylum in the Republic of Serbia, for as their number increased, the number of persons coming to the asylum centres reduced, and the persons received in the asylum centres did not stay there for a long period of time, i.e., almost all of them at their free will left the centres and continued their journeys. The main refugee transit route towards the countries of the Western Europe was passing through Hungary, until September 15, 2015, when Hungary closed its border-crossing points towards Serbia. Then, thousands of refugees stayed at the border crossing points Horgoš 1 and Horgoš 2, trying to cross the border. After the construction of wall and closure of border, several days after, at Horgoš 1, police officers of the Hungarian Police received five persons every hour. As a rule, their applications were rejected, and after issuance of the decision on denial of stay, persons were brought outside the fence, that separated Hungary from Serbia without any request for readmission sent to the Republic of Serbia and without any approval of the Serbian competent authorities that these persons would be received. Despite the fact that it was obvious that the border with Hungary would be completely closed, officers of the Regional Centre of the Border Police towards Hungary did not receive any official notification or instruction of the Ministry of the Interior instructing for their actions, and the NPM expressed its opinion in that regards that the Ministry of the Interior should act proactively and instruct the work of its organizational units, submitting them all relevant data 106Until the opening of the Reception Centre in Preševo, Police Station in Preševo was overburdened with work. For the sake of comparison, in May the total of 853 certificates of the intention to seek asylum were issued, and in June 7,141, whereas only for the first seven days of July, they issued 3,207 certificates. 107 Visits to the Reception Centre in Preševo were paid on 24 th of November and 12/07/2015 108 The NPM Report on the visit to the Airport “Nikola Tesla”, no. 71-59/15 of 07/03/2015 109 “Official Gazette of the RS”, number 81/15

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