SKOPJE: Police in North Macedonia have detained 26 migrants thought to have entered illegally from neighbouring Greece, and arrested a suspected smuggler who had been driving them in a van toward the northern border with Serbia.
A police statement said the migrants from Syria, Pakistan, Egypt and India were detained early Tuesday after a patrol stopped their vehicle near the eastern town of Stip.
The driver, who is suspected of belonging to a migrant-smuggling gang, is a national of North Macedonia. The migrants were transferred to a reception centre pending deportation to Greece.
The relaxation of pandemic-era restrictions has brought an increase in the numbers of migrants taking the Balkan route into Europe’s prosperous heartland. Police in North Macedonia have recorded a roughly 100 percent increase in people illegally entering the country so far this year, compared with the same period in 2021.
More than 11,000 people — mostly from Pakistan, India and Syria — have been stopped so far this year. About 90 percent of them are thought to have come through Greece, which in turn they entered from Turkey.
They usually pay criminal gangs to help them on their clandestine journey.
