15.11.2018.
Minister Vulin: Serbia is still humane and responsible while resolving the migrant crisis
- Serbia is still humane and responsible while resolving the migrant crisis. We have showed, as a unique country on the entire migrant route, that we do have a system capable of taking care of people, to control their movement, to protect their human dignity, and to take care of the citizens of our country and our way of life - Minister of Defence Aleksandar Vulin, pointed out today at the opening of 14th working meeting with town and municipal trustees for refugees in the Grand Hotel on the Kopaonik mountain as the chair of the Working group for the resolution of the issue of mixed migration flows pointed out.
At the gathering, Minister Vulin reminded at the gathering that from 2015 until 2018, Serbia had been stricken by the migrant crisis and during that time, hundreds of thousand people had passed through our country and there had not been a single incident.- That supports the fact that the Government of the Republic of Serbia was so well organised, but it also proves the humanity of the citizens of Serbia, as well as the fact that they are the people with a great heart who understand human suffering. President of then Government of the Republic of Serbia Aleksandar Vučić passed a decision to establish a mixed working group thus demonstrating that he was one of the first European leaders who had understood the danger of the migrant crisis and how the people passing through Serbia should be taken care of and how one should take care of one’s own country, and of everybody else - Minister Vulin stressed.
According to him, the migrant crisis is not over yet, but it is milder than it used to be, but, as he added, without a uniform European solution and uniform European position towards the migrations, no one could win the fight against the migrant crisis.
- As it was the case so far, Serbia will continue behaving humanely, organised, and it will take care of every human being in need, paying attention to the observance of the law as well and protecting our way of life. I would like to thank all the members of the Commissariat for Refugees who selflessly worked, over all those years, on taking care and preserving dignity of these people, which is exactly what made us different from all other countries - Minister Vulin assessed adding that Serbia considered those people as people in trouble, not as a threat or burden.
He expressed gratitude to the European Union which donated more than 98 million dollars over those years, and added that even more important than the money had been their faith in our asylum system, in our state and our organisation.Also, Minister Vulin particularly emphasised that the migrant crisis could not and must not be a justification for us to forget that we still had more than 200,000 internally displaced persons from Kosovo and Metohija, and tens of thousands refugees from the territory of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, all those people who, following the civil wars in the area of SFRY, had been forced to leave their homes, and they still could not exercise their fundamental human rights - right to property, to vote and the right to return.
At a gathering dedicated to implementation of Regional Housing Programme and the current situation in the field of asylum and migration, Commissioner for Refugees of the Republic of Serbia Vladimir Cucić thanked Minister Vulin, first of all as the chairman of the Working group adding that Serbia would have experienced the same situation like many others along the path of the refugees had it not established that body.- At that time and in that moment, it required to have faith in some of the solutions that we proposed which may have not been so common, but have now become the example of the practice in the entire world. Aleksandar Vulin went through a difficult journey with us, from water guns and tear gas in Horgos, with my colleagues from the Commissariat and trustees, who were at that time the only force present at the borders, to Miratovac and various pressures we were exposed to in order for Serbia to accept different proposals - Commissioner Cucić stated.
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