Syrian Sultan from Belgrade - only hope for migrants

Syrian Sultan from Belgrade - only hope for migrants

"Because of the agreement between the European Union and Turkey, refugees are using the path through Bulgaria, Serbia and Hungary," Deutsche Welle quotes conservative German newspaper Die Welt, and an article under the headline, "A new Balkan Route."

Since Turkey started receiving migrants back from Greece, and Macedonia stopped allowing them passage, more and more refugees are attempting to cross the green border into Bulgaria and then Serbia. One Afghan man told the paper he was "beaten several times by Bulgarian border guards and returned to Turkey" but then he finally managed to reach Belgrade.

"Smugglers promised they would transfer him from Istanbul to Belgrade for EUR 1,000. Like him, every day 200 to 300 migrants arrive in Belgrade, to a park near the bus station which serves as their main meeting point. There they receive food, clothing and shoes from volunteers, wait for their friends, negotiate with smugglers. One of these goes by the nickname of Sultan," the German daily writes, and describes the man as having "short grayish hair, wearing a gray t-shirt and military-style pants, and a gold chain. A Syrian."

"He is running his business from the garden of a fast food restaurant near the park, always surrounded by his customers. 'He does not hide what he's doing, I even think he is proud of it,' says Branislava Djonin, one of the volunteers," said the article, and added that Sultan, however, "does not want to talk to reporters."

Die Welt also writes that smugglers in Belgrade ask for EUR 800 for a trip to Vienna, and 2,000 to Germany - while "a cheaper solution costs 100 and means a path to the porous places on the Serbian-Hungarian border, where rises the three-meter fence."

"According to official Hungarian statements, 11,000 people have been detained since the start of the year for border violations. Another 3,600 of them came legally through transit zones at the border crossings, where the police are working as slow as they can in order to limit the influx. According to official statements, 12,000 asylum requests have been filed in Hungary this year. In addition, there is a dark figure that nobody knows: those who have been smuggled unnoticed. An asylum application is actually a ticket for one of the open camps in the country, where refugees should in theory wait for the processing of their request. In practice, however, most of them soon disappear without a trace."

According to the article, those who "disappear" in this way later show up in the Hungarian town of Gyor, "a gathering place for smugglers, before Austria". The newspaper goes on to describe several establishments as being the gathering points, and quotes a woman who works in one of them as saying they include "a Turkish restaurant opened only two months ago."

She said that over the recent months she saw "a migrant walking around with a 10,000 forint (33 euros) bill and a condom, molesting women," and another who molested her "behind the bar." In front of the cafe, writes Die Welt, walked "a big man in a leather jacket, with young migrants around him" - one whom the woman described as "a regular customer, an Iraqi, who chats with us a lot and comes four times a day, always with a different group, paying for his coffee with EUR 50 bills. A smuggler."

"Perhaps the Afghani from the beginning of the story will also come to this smuggler. The condition is that his family back home collects more money and sends it to him to Belgrade via Western Union. When he gets the money, he will pass - because this hidden Balkan route works seamlessly," concluded the German daily.