Serbian police forced migrants to strip and return naked to North Macedonia

(Patria) - British newspaper The Guardian published a video on its website showing a group of men in underwear, walking along a road in the cold and in the dark. According to the newspaper, these are migrants whose clothes were removed by the Serbian police and who were forced back to North Macedonia.

The Guardian states that it could not independently confirm the content of the two videos, and that it obtained them through the NGO Legis from North Macedonia. According to this organization, the videos were made near the village of Lojane, near the border with Serbia, and were handed over to the organization on February 10.

The British newspaper quotes the claims of the NGO Legis, according to which two "degrading" push-backs occurred on that day, in which more than 50 people were forced to strip naked or in their underwear and forced to return to North Macedonia, from where they had illegally entered the territory of Serbia.

Legis claims that its staff managed to talk to one of the men in the video, who said they were Syrians.

Jasmin Redžepi, president of Legis, told The Guardian that the "disturbing and humiliating" push-back occurred shortly after the summit between the European Union and Serbia on border cooperation, which was held with the aim of strengthening the Serbian border against human trafficking.

"These incidents happened while the European Union was preparing restrictions for migrants on the route, and in this case, just a few days after the EU-Serbia summit. We then saw the direct impact and consequences," said Redžepi.

While there have been reports of migrants being stripped naked at other borders, Redžepi points out that something like this has been documented for the first time at the border between Serbia and North Macedonia.

Radoš Đurović, executive director of the Centre for Protection and Assistance of Asylum Seekers in Serbia, said that the Centre's staff has recorded an increased number of pushbacks from Serbia to North Macedonia since the beginning of the year.

"We can say that this is now a regular practice," Đurović told The Guardian.

Dunja Mijatović, Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, emphasized that an urgent investigation is necessary into recent reports of alleged push-backs carried out by the Serbian police on the border with North Macedonia.

"These incidents are not only disturbing, but they also show a broader, worrying trend. These actions violate the European Convention on Human Rights, which prohibits collective expulsion, as well as other international standards," said Mijatović.