A/HRC/40/59/Add.1
period of time and all seven persons who were held there were obliged to spend the night
sitting in armchairs. However, they had all received meals provided by the airport police.
49.
The individuals concerned reported that they had not had the opportunity to contact
their embassy or a lawyer and that they had not had access to a translator. The Border
Police officers who had refused their entry reportedly had not informed them of their right
to seek asylum and had not taken any active measure to identify any potential risk or threat
they could face upon return in accordance with the principle of non-refoulement. The
Special Rapporteur’s team interviewed two individuals who clearly expressed their fear of
persecution in case of return and who claimed to have expressed their intention to seek
asylum once they had been brought to the transit area, but they had then been informed that
this was no longer possible.
50.
The Special Rapporteur noted that the considerations underlying and informing the
decision of the Border Police to refuse entry and initiate forcible return were not
documented with sufficient precision in individual case files and that any such deportation
decision did not appear to be subject to a legal remedy involving an individual assessment
of the risk of refoulement to a place where the person in question might be subjected to
torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
51.
While fully recognizing the sovereign right of Serbia to control immigration, the
Special Rapporteur is seriously concerned that refusal of entry and, more importantly,
deportation decisions based on the personal perceptions of individual border guards, if not
properly documented and subjected to independent judicial review, bears a great risk of
arbitrariness and, in certain cases, may well amount to refoulement in violation of human
rights law and, in particular, of the prohibition of torture and ill-treatment.
2.
Conditions in reception centres
52.
Serbia has undertaken significant and meaningful efforts in dealing with the
challenges arising from the influx of migrants travelling along the so-called “Balkan route”.
After the closure of this route in 2016, over 7,000 refugees and migrants, including
unaccompanied children, remained in Serbia. With the support of the international
community, the Serbian authorities have developed infrastructure and humanitarian
assistance to accommodate migrants and refugees in reception centres, irrespective of their
decision to apply for asylum. Old facilities, such as former hotels, have been transformed
and adapted to respond to the needs of refugees and migrants.
53.
The Special Rapporteur and his team visited the temporary reception centres of
Adaševci, Obrenovac and Preševo, which are managed by the Commissariat for Refugees
and Migrants, and where basic humanitarian and medical support is provided. Material
conditions and medical care within these centres were very basic. The Special Rapporteur
identified temporary situations of slight overcrowding giving rise to potential risks of
tension and abuse among the migrants. He observed that in some units several families
were accommodated together in shared spaces, and that in others young adolescents were
placed with single men. Furthermore the Special Rapporteur received allegations
concerning limitations of migrants’ freedom of movement, particularly in Preševo where
some migrants complained they had been regularly denied authorization to leave the centre.
54.
Most migrants accommodated in such centres do not request asylum in Serbia but
are waiting for the possibility of onward travel to States in the European Union. According
to the information received from migrants and civil society organizations, European Union
States give entry priority to families with children. The Special Rapporteur is concerned
that the flow of migration from Serbia to Hungary seems to be managed through an
informal ad hoc waiting list in collaboration with the migration authorities in the Hungarian
transit zone. The Special Rapporteur is concerned that this practice may be conducive to
potential abuse and corruption. Many migrants interviewed complained about the long
waiting time, sometimes more than two years, for their name to move up the list. Several
interviewees reported that all information about the list was communicated to them by the
Commissariat staff, others complained they had to pay bribes to have their name included
on the list. The prospect of appearing on the waiting list reportedly deterred many migrants
9