Migrants await break on Serb border

SID, Serbia — Several hundred migrants were camping along Serbia’s borders on Monday, sleeping outdoors in makeshift shelters from the cold as they look for a chance to cross into neighboring European Union countries.

Amid biting wind and freezing temperatures, the migrants huddled around small fires in an abandoned factory near Croatia’s border as aid groups distributed food and warm drinks.

“These people continue to stay outside in very inhumane and unsafe conditions…. There is no clear access to water or sanitation facilities,” said Andrea Contenta, a humanitarian affairs adviser in Serbia for Doctors Without Borders.

Contenta added that while officials have closed off the socalled Balkan route — leading from Turkey to Greece or Bulgaria, and on to Macedonia and Serbia — migrants still use it to cross illegally and face dangers.

“We cannot continue to say that the Balkan route is closed,” he insisted. “We have to acknowledge that people are still [moving] along the Balkans, and we need to find the way to avoid” putting them at risk.

Though numbers of migrants in the Balkans have been reduced, Serbian officials said about 300 to 400 people have been staying out in the open.

Wrapped in woolen blankets, caps and shawls, some of the migrants camping on Monday held their feet above the fire to keep warm. Others tried to wash mud off their shoes.

Ahmed Alloui, 20, from Algeria, said “there is bad life” back home.

“We are looking for better life,” he said.