State Secretary Bence Rétvári has revealed that Hungarian police officers have been dispatched on a mission to help stop illegal migrants and people smugglers at the Serbian side of the North Macedonian-Serbian border.
The interior ministry’s state secretary visited the town of Presevo on Wednesday to meet the 35-member contingent of Hungarian police officers serving on a joint mission with their Serbian and Austrian colleagues. He also met the national police chief of Serbia and the leader of the border protection authority. Rétvári said the Serbian partners had expressed gratitude for the presence of the Hungarian police unit over the past two weeks and praised their expertise. He said the Serbian-Hungarian-Austrian joint police mission had made it possible to stop and turn back illegal migrants and people smugglers at the Serbian-North Macedonian border, “just one borderline away from the Hungarian border in the south”. Rétvári said the triparty cooperation could serve as a model for the EU in effective cooperation between member states and a non-member in protecting the bloc’s external borders. The state secretary also visited a refugee centre with 1,000-2,000 people staying there. Since the outbreak of the migration crisis, the centre has handled between 1.5-2 million people, a number equalling the population of the Hungarian capital, Rétvári noted.
Photo credit: Facebook/Rétvári Bence