Serbia on the run

By Johan Persson – More people flee their homes than ever. Last year, over 50 million people were displaced worldwide. That figure is expected to rise further in 2015. At an abandoned brick factory in the border town of Subotica in northern Serbia, refugees gather before crossing into Hungary and the EU. Qasem Aslami from Afghanistan has made it all the way here, even though he cannot walk. His fellow countrymen carried him on their backs. In Serbia, the number of asylum seekers tripled last year. This year’s first two months, 28,535 people applied for asylum in Hungary, compared to 42,777 all of 2014. Many are from Kosovo, but there is also a dramatic increase from countries such as Afghanistan,Iraq and Syria. Many have walked hundreds of miles to reach Europe. Now they are exhausted and hungry. “If we die, we are no problem for Europe. Only if we succeed and survive, says Rassoul from Pakistan. Meanwhile, the EU is mobilizing along the boarder between Serbia and Hungary, to stop refugees from entering the union.