Migrants are coming to border line with Serbia exhausted, hungry, with wounds on their feet, and a lot of them, especially children are suffering from fever, diarrhea, respiratory infections and sunstroke. There are a significant and increasing number of pregnant women, new mothers, infants and young children, as well as unaccompanied children.
From January to end-July 2015, a total of 15,280 minors have been registered, 4,122 of whom are unaccompanied, including 3,498 boys and 614 girls. The total number of registered minors has increased by more than 350% from May (1,973) to July (7,080).
Serbian state is trying to organize adequate care and assistance to migrants, but the majority of avoid any registration or formal procedures because they want as quickly as possible to continue their journey to the final destination in the EU. They often lack the information as they cannot communicate with the local population and services because of language and different cultural patterns (especially women). This makes them particularly vulnerable and in high risk of all kinds of exploitation, trafficking and abuses by local crooks and criminals.
Activists and NGOs started offering help in this area as well but present state and other capacities for support (asylum centers, supplies, information points and transportation) are insufficient, especially for urgent replay.
