For the project Borders of ASCS, Davide Pignata spent five days in Serbia, on the border with Hungary, accompanying the No Name Kitchen organization in operations to assist migrant people in the informal encampments on the border strip. Here is his testimony. Photo by Francesco Cibati.

Undesirable. This is the plight of migrant people stranded at the border between Serbia and Hungary. Rejected, on the one hand, by the famous physical and technological wall, that was yes, desired and boasted by the Hungarian President Orbán. Criminalized, on the other hand, by Serbian authorities, who periodically evict the dilapidated informal encampments inhabited by transients who attempt dozens of times to cross the border.

Barbed wire wall between Serbia and Hungary. Photo by Francesco Cibati.

The migration hub of the Balkan route that passes through Serbia and goes to Hungary has become increasingly beaten in recent months. According to Frontex data, between January and July 2022, the number of people on the move in this region tripled compared to the same period last year^[1]. Most come from Syria, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Parallel to the increase in the people in transit, the number of rejections and violence has also increased. According to official figures from the Hungarian government, which has been proudly claiming the occurrence of the illegal practice of pushbacks since 2015, there have been 234,000 cases of pushbacks to Serbia since the beginning of 2022. Far more than the entire 2021 (122,000) and 2020 (6,000)^[2].

The use of increasingly advanced technologies (drones, sensors, video surveillance systems, and artificial intelligence, including robots) to control the border makes rejections increasingly efficient. Hungarian and Romanian border police add to the efficiency of technology the violence of authority, robbing people on the move of money, cell phones and personal belongings. A recent control practice, that I was told about at the border, is the hacking of cell phones: it happens that, during refoulements, the smartphones of transit passengers are commandeered and tampered with by border police. Once returned to people on the move of they are immediately traceable because the hacked devices send repeated location signals to the Border Patrol.

Surveillance camera at the border between Serbia and Hungary. Photo by Francesco Cibati.

The ruthless efficiency of rejections has resulted in the concentration of thousands of people waiting on the other side of the border. The three official camps, in the towns of Subotica, Sombor and Kikinda, are overcrowded; therefore, people on the move find momentary refuge in abandoned houses or informal camps near the border.

Informal camp in Majdan, Serbia, near the border with Hungary and Romania. Photo by Francesco Cibati.

The conditions of the informal encampments are extremely precarious. At best these are bare walls without windows, at worst they are groupings of tents in the woods along the border. The people we meet in these places show concern about the harsh winter coming. Volunteers from No Name Kitchen, in collaboration with other local and international associations, supply the camps with food, drinking water and portable showers. Periodically these places are cleared by Serbian police. The latest case occurred a few days ago, when a handful of tents a few hundred meters from the Hungarian border were attacked by police forces, who, guns in hand, evicted the people who were sleeping there by forcing them into some buses. The security forces then destroyed the few possessions the people had by ripping open the tents with knives, rendering them unusable^[3].

Tavankut informal camp, visited a few days before eviction by Serbian authorities. Photo by Francesco Cibati.

The words of Alessandro Leogrande come to mind, who wrote in his book The Frontier that “the frontier is the thermometer of the world.”^[4], thus indicating that the state of health (or illness) of the society in which we live is measured from the borders. With the arrival of cold winter weather, what temperature will the world’s thermometer mark? The autumn premise is certainly not the best.

^[1] Cf. Frontex, EU external borders in June: Western Balkan route most active.

^[2] Cf. Schengen Visa Info, Hungary Has Spent HUF 1.6 Billion on Border Protection Since 2015, November 4, 2022.

^[3] Cf. No Name Kitchen, Evictions, externalization of borders and criminalization of migration. Everyday life in Serbia.

^[4] A. Leogrande, La frontiera, Feltrinelli, Milan 2016, p. 16.

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