By Dragan Umek
From September 23 to October 4, 2024, Claudio Minca and I conducted research in Serbia, North Macedonia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina, also travelling through Kosovo and Montenegro en route.
The first part of the trip focused on research along the Serbian border with Croatia and Hungary. Here we aimed to study traces of what remained of the main informal camps (squats, “jungles,” and makeshift camps) in northern Serbia. While these sites have largely been inactive since November 2023, they still hold interest for the study of informal migration in this region. Accompanied by a local humanitarian organization, we visited numerous locations in the municipalities of Subotica and Sombor. We also stopped briefly in Belgrade where we met the representatives of a local NGO.
Continuing on to North Macedonia, while still in Serbia we took a small detour to Obrenovac where we noted the presence of a large number of migrants camped outside the reception centre.
In Skopje we participated in a number of meetings, and a workshop on migration at the Faculty of Law at the ‘Cyril and Methodius’ University of Skopje. We travelled outside of Skopje to visit the two Transit Centres, Gevgelija and Tabanovce, respectively on the southern and northern borders of the country. At both centres we met with the camp managers and other humanitarian workers. Furthermore, we dedicated a day to visiting important sites along the border with Serbia.
We returned to Serbia (via Kosovo) to visit the government Asylum Centre of Sjenica located near the border with Montenegro, one of the few centres managed by the Serbian Commissariat which is still open for people on the move.
The last part of the fieldwork took place in Sarajevo. Together with Yolanda Weima we visited two reception facilities, the Blažuj Temporary Reception Centre and the Ušivak Temporary Reception Centre. The following day, a short trip to Trnovo took us to the Deljaš Asylum Centre where we had a long meeting with the camp manager, before returning to Italy.