| Police hunting for immigrants' bodies |
| 22 October 2009 | 10:16 -> 16:40
| Source:
B92, Beta, Tanjug |
Priština --
Serbian and Hungarian police are working to establish the identities and the exact number of illegal immigrants killed in an accident on the Tisa river.
 | The River Tisa
|
Priština says that 15 Kosovo Albanians drowned in the tragedy.
Police in Kikinda say that several people drowned in Hungarian territory in attempting to cross the border illegally. It has been confirmed that, on October 18, fishermen near Martonos found the body of a woman in her early thirties, assumed to be one of the victims.
According to information that Priština received from Hungary’s Foreign Ministry, 15 Kosovo Albanians are listed as missing.
A Kosovo government spokesman said that the Hungarian ministry had informed Priština that everything was being done to recover the bodies.
The group are believed to have drowned between October 14 and 16 while illegally crossing the Serbian-Hungarian border. The disappearance of at least 15 people was confirmed by a Kosovo Albanian, Argon Rama, who was arrested in Hungary last week. He claimed to have survived after the boat transporting them sank.
Rama said that he had been on a boat with 18 or 19 people. When the boat started to sink he managed to save his two children but not his wife. Rama’s statement was reported by Kosovo government spokeswoman Albana Beqiri.
She added that contact had been made with Kosovo citizens ’’who are believed to have family members among those who died in the tragedy, while Kosovo’s ambassador to Vienna went to Hungary on Thursday.“ The tragedy happened somewhere between Szeged and Subotica.
According to media in Priština, news agencies from Hungary have been unable to confirm the news about the tragedy.
EULEX and Kosovo police have also still to confirm the information. The police say they only know that an Albanian has been arrested in Hungary.
Serbian police informed
Subotica Police Chief Borivoj Mucalj said that Hungarian officials had told him that a boat had capsized on the Hungarian side of the Tisa River while trying to cross the border illegally, and that one woman had been found dead while the search for the rest was continuing.
One man and two children, who were washed up on shore alive, are currently in Hungary, but no information has been released yet on how many people were in the boat.
Mucalj said that he had been told that “while they were trying to illegally cross the border in the so-called Dead Tisa region” the boat capsized and “most of the people on board probably drowned.”
“The rest are being searched for…That's all we got from an exchange of letters though the local mixed commission where I am a representative on our side,” Mucalj said.
He added that the section of the Tisa where the boat capsized is entirely on the Hungarian side of the border.
Mucalj explained that an exchange of letters was the usual form of communication between two local mixed committees which are responsible for cooperation on the border between two countries.
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