VULIN ON MIGRANTS IN GENEVA

20. August 2015.

The President of the International Committee of the Red Cross Peter Maurer expressed his understanding and respect for everything the Serbian government was doing when it comes to migrants, said Minister for Labor, Employment, Veterans’ and Social Issues Aleksandar Vulin. He said that it was agreed at a meeting with Mr. Maurer to work together on the estimates of what awaited us, what would happen the following winter, how many people could still come and, as he pointed out, those bits of data would really be of paramount importance to Serbia. As the “Tanjug’ news agency learned at the Ministry of Labor, Employment, Veterans’ and Social Issues, Minister Vulin asked the President of the International Committee of the Red Cross to use his authority and the authority of the organization he chaired to warn the international community that what was happening in the Balkans might grow into a humanitarian disaster.

“Especially when the Hungarian wall is put up and when the movement of migrants will be made even more difficult. We agreed that Serbia wasn’t guilty of the problem, that it coped with the consequences of the problem and that it coped very well”, said Minister Vulin. He pointed out that it was most important to draw the attention of the international public to what was going on regarding the influx of migrants in Serbia.

The President of the Red Cross of Serbia Dragan Radovanovic said that that was the right place to talk, because, as he said, the ICRC was the chief or key factor in the international humanitarian sphere, as well as that the support of the organization in such serious and emergency situations, such as the one with migrants, was very important.

“This is even more so because the main mandate of the ICRC is to stay and work in conflict zones, and these are precisely the areas from which we get the largest number of migrants. Estimates and their opinions are very important indeed, so that we could orient ourselves and make a strategy for the times to come", said Mr. Radovanovic.

Source: “Blic” daily and Coordination Body