Hungarian police officers help stop illegal migrants at Serbia’s southern border

Bence Retvari visited the town to meet the 35-member contingent of Hungarian police officers serving on a joint mission with their Serbian and Austrian colleagues. He also met the national police chief of Serbia and the leader of the border protection authority.

Retvari said the Serbian partners had expressed gratitude for the presence of the Hungarian police unit over the past two weeks and praised their expertise.

He said the Serbian-Hungarian-Austrian joint police mission had made it possible to stop and turn back illegal migrants and people smugglers at the Serbian-North Macedonian border, “just one borderline away from the Hungarian border in the south”.

Retvari said the triparty cooperation could serve as a model for the EU in an effective cooperation between member states and a non-member in protecting the bloc’s external borders.

The state secretary also visited a refugee centre with 1,000-2,000 people staying there. Since the outbreak of the migration crisis, the centre has handled between 1.5-2 million people, a number equaling the population of the Hungarian capital, Retvari noted.