The Montenegro state prosecutor’s office said in a statement the suspects formed a gang ‘to smuggle people from Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Syria, and other countries to Montenegro’.
It said they were accused of smuggling a total of 352 people ‘with the aim of gaining financial or other benefits’.
Just the day before, police in neighbouring Serbia arrested members of two organised criminal groups accused of smuggling at least 176 migrants, the state prosecution service there said.
Serbia, a non-EU major state and a transit country on the ‘Balkan Route’, has seen over a million people from Asia and Africa pass through its territory since the refugee crisis of 2015, according to the Serbian government. It says most of them hoped to reach neighbouring EU members Hungary and Croatia.
Serbian authorities ‘detained 12 members of two organised criminal groups, while two are still at large,’ the Serbian prosecutors said in a statement.
The groups ‘smuggled a total of 176 irregular migrants over a four-month period.’
Most of those attempting to cross via Serbia in recent months were from Syria, Afghanistan, Turkey, Morocco, and Pakistan, according to government data.
Many migrants have died on the journey.
In August, 12 people, including a nine-month-old baby, died when their boat capsized as they tried to cross the Drina River, which separates Serbia from Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Source link : https://www.newagebd.net/post/europe/246978/dozens-arrested-for-migrant-smuggling-in-montenegro-serbia
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Publish date : 2024-10-04 19:29:09
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