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Serbian special forces and police units should be present on the Serbian-Hungarian border constantly, the population rightly expects them to guard their security, the vice-president of the Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians (VMSZ) and deputy leader of the VMSZ’s parliamentary party in Serbia told Kossuth Radio’s Sunday Newspaper (Vasárnapi újság) program.
On the migration situation in Serbia, Elvira Kovács said that for some time now there have been more police officers and gendarmes on the ground in the region. She added that the VMSZ has been saying since 2015 that the situation there is unmanageable and “the problem has come to a peak recently.” The politician said that “migrants will be there all the time” and that if the police presence might decrease a little, “VMSZ will immediately report it to the Interior Ministry and keep asking them to follow the problem, collect the migrants and take them to reception centers.”
Asked how long the Serbian special forces and police units will stay at the border, Elvira Kovács emphasized that
they have been asking for their continued and increased presence for a very long time.
She recalled that at the beginning there were only actions of gathering migrants. However, the police and the Serbian government have realized that this is a permanent problem that needs to be dealt with on an ongoing basis, she stressed.
She said that the reception centers had been set up to put migrants there, “but they were allowed to walk freely.” In 2015, for instance, “Kanjiža (Magyarkanizsa), Horgoš (Horgos) and municipalities in Hungary were targeted, and then Rabe (Majdány-Rábé), which belongs to the municipality of (Novi Kneževac (Törökkanizsa).” The population there rightly felt unsafe, she noted.
Migrants are walking freely in different settlements near the border, while in accordance with the legislation, unknown persons without documents are not allowed to do so,”
she said.
She added that Hungary and Serbia are cooperating in dealing with the migration situation, and that this is also due in large part to the work of the VMSZ. Not only because they report the problem, but also because they cooperate with local politicians. István Pásztor, who died last Monday and was the president of the VMSZ, played a very important role in this. István Pásztor has worked hard over the past thirteen years to ensure that Hungarian-Serb relations today are “at a historic level”, the party’s vice-president underlined. As she concluded, they must continue their work.
Via MTI, Featured image: police.hu