As of Monday, 20 Hungarian police officers will be deployed with their Serbian colleagues to patrol the Serbian-Macedonian border with four vehicles equipped with state-of-the art thermovision cameras, the Belgrade electronic media reported after the talks between the two police officials, which focused on illegal migration, an increasingly serious problem in the region.
Serbian police director Veljovic said that around 1,000 people were on the Serbian border with Macedonia and Bulgaria every day, wishing to enter Serbia and continue their journey via Hungary to other EU countries.
"This is a very serious problem and as of Monday our joint teams will work in that area together with colleagues from Austria, and probably those from Germany as well," Veljovic said, adding that "immigrants are not only Serbia's and Hungary's problem, but a problem of all of Europe."
Serbian and Hungarian police forces, as well as those in other countries in the region, are taking this problem seriously and are taking measures to contain it, it was said at the talks.
Serbian Minister of the Interior Nebojsa Stefanovic said today that 31,500 immigrants had passed through Serbia since the beginning of this year and that their number was likely to continue growing.
"It is now a problem which Serbia cannot solve on its own - we have no right and we cannot physically prevent those people from entering our country when they seek or say they plan to seek asylum," Stefanovic said.
Labour Minister Aleksandar Vulin today asked Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic to urgently call a regional conference on immigrants.
Vulin said that since Hungary's announcement that it would put up a fence along its border with Serbia, the number of asylum seekers had increased as had the number of those who were leaving reception centres in Serbia and trying to continue their journey as soon as possible because Serbia was not their final destination.