Last week Border police prevented 18 migrants from Kosovo and Metohija to irregularly cross the border with Hungary. Two people from Subotica and Prizren were detained for trafficking in people. They are just one example of people who are trying to escape from ‘free Kosovo’ and reach the Western countries, through Serbia. 

Although they formally try to stop them, Kosovo police, for a fee, turn a blind eye on full buses, which are going in the middle of the night or early in the morning, in the direction of Belgrade, and further on to Subotica. 

Transport of Kosovo Albanians across the northern Serbian border has become a lucrative business. It is not known how many people irregularly crossed the "state line", but 21,453 inhabitants of Kosovo sought asylum in Hungary, in the last year. 

Rados Djurovic, director of the Centre for the protection and assistance of asylum seekers said that is the half of the total number of 40,000 requests for asylum in this neighbouring country, which were filed last year. All migrants entered through Serbia. The number of requests is constantly growing, and in December the number exceeded 14,000, which means that 400 people asked the Hungarian authorities for the documents. Half of them were from Kosovo. They mostly enter into Hungary irregularly, but not by the same channels as the other migrants who pass through Serbia - explains Djurovic. Kosovo Albanians arrive in the southern Serbia with Kosovo identity cards. There they receive status-neutral confirmation that they entered the country, with which they move along the territory of central Serbia. So, they are legally traveling to Subotica, often in groups, by bus. In Subotica, their compatriots wait them. 

Albanians from Kosovo often travel with the whole family, including children, but also alone. When they reach the "safe harbour", they will send money to the family in Kosovo, and consequently facilitate the “social burden” to the local authorities. Therefore, Pristina turns a blind eye to it, while the Hungarian neighbours loudly revolt. The target are the countries in which Albanian diaspora is strong - France, Germany, Belgium, Austria. 

Earlier this week, in a bus from Skopje to Belgrade, at the station in Bujanovac, entered thirty young Albanians. One of the passengers, who speak Albanian, later confirmed that the Albanians were talking to each other to flee from southern Serbia, because "it seems there will be a mobilization of the Liberation Army of Presevo, Bujanovac and Medvedja". Their final point was Belgrade, but it is not known where they left from Belgrade.