COUNTRY OF ORIGIN INFORMATION
SERBIA
According to UNHCR statistics for 2011, 161,671 refugees and people in refugee-like situations originated from Serbia.
As UNHCR statistics generally rely on data from host countries, statistics on refugees alone can give an insufficient account of refugee numbers, as some host countries will not grant refugee status to certain groups. Including statistics for individuals in refugee-like situations is an attempt to account for unrecognised refugees and does not include stateless and internally displaced persons.
These statistics, which are for 2011, are the latest available, are provisional, and are subject to change.
Click here to see host countries for refugees originating from Serbia.
ALERT: Serbia as a Safe Third County: A Wrong Presumption
The writing of this report was triggered by a significant increase in the number of asylum seekers returned by the Hungarian authorities to Serbia in 2011. Hungary modified its Asylum Act in December 2010 and introduced the concept of a safe third country among the criteria examined in the admissibility procedure. The result of this amendment is that asylum seekers arriving in Hungary through Serbia can be returned to Serbia without an in-merit examination of their claim. As the application of this concept concerns a significant number of asylum seekers in Hungary, the Hungarian Helsinki Committee (HHC) decided to examine whether the utilisation of the safe third country concept in relation to Serbia is justified.
Report: Hungarian Helsinki Committee, Sept. 2011
Dr Ivana Djuric
E-mail: ivana_duric [at] yahoo [dot] com (ivana_duric[at]yahoo.com)
Dr Djuric is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Nottingham. Her most recent research deals with problems of reconstruction of post-conflict societies in Southeastern Europe/former Yugoslavia (Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo). Dr Djuric's doctoral research dealt with minority refugee repatriation in Croatia in the period of 1995-2006. She has had involvement with cases of Croatian refugees who are trying to reclaim their property in Croatia. She spent five years working in the governmental sector and international development, and continues to collaborate with practitioners as advisor and consultant, and on the development of various research projects.
Robert M Hayden
E-mail: rhayden [at] pitt [dot] edu (rhayden[at]pitt.edu)
Robert M. Hayden, JD, PhD, is Professor of Anthropology, Law and PUblic & International Affairs at the University of PIttsburgh, USA. He has conducted research on social, legal and constitutional issues in the former Yugoslavia and its successor republics since 1981, is fluent in the languages once known collectively as Serbo-Croatian and now as "BCS" (Bosnian/ Croatian/ Serbian) and has substantial experience in refugee claims form the region. He has provided reports for immigration cases based on political oppression or social discrimination without effective government remedies in successor states to former Yugoslavia.
CITSEE Research Project
Website: http://www.law.ed.ac.uk/citsee/CountryProfiles/serbia.aspx
The Europeanisation of Citizenship in the Successor States of the Former Yugoslavia (CITSEE) Research Project, under the University of Edinburgh's School of Law, provides detailed research into the national citizenship regimes of the seven new states now existing on the territory of the former Yugoslavia. There are also extended reports focusing on the broader political and ideational context in which the respective citizenship regimes are evolving and relevant photographs and other graphic material, such as scanned examples of identity documents and passports.