On July 2nd, reports Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, a shooting incident occurred on the Serbian side of the Hungarian-Serbian border. The incident, which left one person dead, reportedly involved Afghan and Pakistani migrants and a dispute “most likely over human trafficking.”
ABC News claims the migrants had been “stranded” just south of the Hungarian border.
The number of wounded from the incident varies between six and seven, depending on news sources. According to the Daily Times, a Pakistani news site,
[a] 16-year-old girl sustained life threatening injuries in the incident that occurred in a forest in the outskirts of Subotica, some 160 kilometres (100 miles) north of Belgrade … Police, who made no immediate comment, blocked access to the forest where the incident took place, only around a kilometre from the Hungarian border.
The Daily Times also quotes the Mayor of Subotica, Stevan Bakic, as saying that the rest of the wounded were in the 20-30 age group and had no documents.
Sputnik News, which reports seven people wounded, pinpoints the location of the shootout to “the village of Makova-Sedmica near Subotica.”
In the past, Hungary has been accused of being a portal for human trafficking into the European Union. However, Hungarian police crackdowns on human trafficking have resulted in stiff punishments. In 2019, four human traffickers who were found guilty in the death of 71 migrants were sentenced to life.
Last year the Hungarian national police broke up a human-smuggling operation which was led by a man of Syrian origin living in Germany.
The smuggling networks can continue to operate so long as Germany, Sweden, and Netherlands remain profitable destinations for human trafficking.
