6. 500 REFUGEES REGISTERED IN PRESEVO YESTERDAY, OVER 4,500 PEOPLE ARRIVED TODAY

23. October 2015.

Presevo – From midnight until noon, 3,700 refugees were registered at the Reception Centre for Refugees in Presevo, while there are currently over 300 refugees waiting to be registered at the Center, as well as 500 refugees waiting in line in front of the Reception Center, said Mirjana Milenkovski a spokesperson for the UNHCR office in Belgrade.

Ms. Milenkovski said 6,500 refugees had been registered at the Reception Center in Presevo on Wednesday, which was a record number of refugees per day until then.

“The number of refugees isn’t reduced, since 102, 520 asylum seekers were registered at the Center in October alone. All those waiting to be registered in Presevo are protected from the rain, since shelters made of tarpaulin had been set up ", she said.

She also said that tents had been set up within the Center, as well as in Miratpvacko polje, where the refugees stay before coming to Presevo. Ms. Milenkovski said that there had been no need to activate the Refugee Registration Center in Bujanovac, which is located at the “Svetlost” battery plant, because the registration capacity of the Reception Center in Presevo had been hugely increased, and, for the time being, all the refugees coming from Macedonia could get registered there.

“In June, when the number of refugees began growing rapidly, the police in Presevo had two computers for registration, while now, thanks to the assistance provided by the UNHCR, it has 14 of them. Some computers, which had been selected for use at the registration center in Bujanovac, were brought back to Presevo, so that the process of issuing documents could be speeded up, "said Ms. Milenkovski.

The number of refugees that have daily been coming to Presevo since June increased, so that the average number of them in October reached the figure of 5,000.

According to police records, 267.717 refugees have been registered in Serbia since the beginning of the year.

Source: “Beta” news agency and Coordination Body