Migrants have mastered a new route to enter Western Europe – through Kosovo
Illegal immigrants from the Middle East, Asia and Africa have recently begun to increasingly use the Eagle's Nest mountain trail at the Morina checkpoint on the border of Kosovo and Albania.
This was reported by Reporteri, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
Along the new route, migrants cross the border with the help of smugglers and local guides who make money from it. In turn, Albanian police have recorded an increase in the number of migrants and refugees who have illegally crossed the border into Kosovo in the hope of entering Serbia, eventually reaching the European Union through Croatia or Hungary.
“The police in Albania are good to us,” one detained illegal immigrant told reporters as he waited in front of a police station in Kukes, Albania, to be taken to a refugee center in Tirana. “And in Kosovo they told us that they treat us well. That's why we are going through Kosovo. Our ultimate goal is Germany because it is the best place in Europe.”
The Kosovo Border Police detained approximately 1 immigrants in just ten months of this year.
“The smugglers send them straight to the Morina checkpoint,” said Sokol Noka, head of the Kukes regional police department for crime investigation. – Some migrants travel alone, but most pay smugglers and local intermediaries to help them cross the many border crossings in the Balkans. “It is also becoming increasingly clear that the smugglers are themselves former migrants who have settled here.”
According to the European Border and Coast Guard Agency Frontex, about 10 illegal border crossings were recorded in the Balkans in the first 48 months of this year, and in October alone, about 500 people entered the EU illegally through the Balkans.
On average, illegal immigrants stay in Kosovo for no more than three to four days. This year alone, the local “police” sent eleven cases of smugglers and middlemen to the “prosecutor’s office”, most of the suspects are from Kosovo, but there are also those who arrived from Morocco and Syria. On average, illegal immigrants pay $200-$500 for a trip from the Albanian border to North Mitrovica (in northern Kosovo).
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