Gevgelija – Delegation of MARRI Regional Centre led by RC Director Sashko Kocev visited the Temporary Transit Center “Vinojug” in Gevgelija for short briefing with representatives of the North Macedonia Regional Center for Border Affairs – South, regarding the latest developments and trends related to the irregular migration.
Presenting the existing situation, the Manager of the Temporary Transit Center “Vinojug” Boban Antonovski informed that currently 34 migrants reside at the Center, some of whom since February 2019. He also gave an overview of the technical capacities of the Center under regular circumstances and in case of emergency, the procedures prior the admission of the migrants and in event of voluntary return. Mr. Antonovski particularly acknowledged the excellent cooperation and support from IOM, UNHCR, Red Cross, Ministry of Labour and Social Policies, Macedonian Young Lawyers Association (MYLA) and etc. in managing the Center.
According to the Commander of the Border Crossing Point “Bogorodica” Jasminka Avramska, priorities of the Border Police are now focused on prevention of the illegal crossings of the border, detaining of the smugglers of migrants and capacity building of the police officers. She informed that the collaboration with the Greek Border Police is satisfactory although still in need for improvement when it comes to the return of the migrants. She also positively evaluated the presence and collaboration with the contingents of deployed police officers coming from 7 EU countries – Austria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Holland, Slovenia and Slovakia, and Serbia as the only non-EU.
At the end, MARRI RC delegation visited the Command Centre for Surveillance close to border crossing point “Bogorodica” which enables 360 degrees surveillance of the terrain around the border crossing point. The technical equipment of the Command Centre is donation from EU through IOM.