SARAJEVO (Reuters) – Three migrants died in a shootout near Serbia’s border with Hungary early on Friday, local media reported, along an EU entry route increasingly used by people smugglers and where Serbian police have stepped up patrols.
The gunbattle, in which a fourth migrant was wounded, occurred in abandoned buildings near the border village of Horgos, N1 television reported, citing police. Reuters calls to the local police station went unanswered.
It was not immediately clear who had fired the shots, which were reported by villagers.
A Serbian NGO said last month that criminal gangs are fighting for control of the area as they try to smuggle migrants into the European Union.
Hungary, which after the shootout urged EU authorities in Brussels to act to stem migrant flows in the area, is a member state of the bloc while Serbia is not.
Serbian police figures show a jump in unauthorised crossings by migrants, predominantly young men from the Middle East and Afghanistan, on Hungary’s southern frontier with Serbia.
Despite the steel border fence that Hungary built after the 2015 migration crisis that rocked Europe, NGO Centre for Asylum Seekers says some 1,500 now attempt to cross into Hungary every day.
Government spokesman Zoltan Kovacs said Hungary has repeatedly warned the EU over “the rising rate of violence and terror committed by migrant gangs” along its borders, to no apparent effect.
“I think it should be high time for Brussels to realise, it’s not quotas and migrant camps we need, but a quick and organised effort to protect our borders, and ensure the safety of our citizens,” Kovacs said on social media platform X.
(Reporting by Daria Sito-Sucic; additional reporting by Krisztina Than in Budapest; editing by John Stonestreet)
