BELGRADE, Sept. 17 (Xinhua) -- Joint forces of Serbian army and police have so far stopped 7,500 illegal migrants to cross its southern border with Macedonia, the Serbian Defense Ministry said Saturday.
A press release reads that Defense Minister Zoran Djordjevic on Friday evening visited members of the joint police and armed forces in Sector A that secures part of Serbia's border towards Macedonia, and made sure that measures of control are effective.
"Results of these two systems (police and army) demotivate migrants from attempting to cross the state border and force them to find themselves another route to their final destination," Djordjevic said.
Reportedly, unit leader informed Djordjevic that the combined units of Serbian Army and the interior ministry managed to catch 50 people smugglers along with preventing 7,500 migrants from crossing the border.
During his visit, Djordjevic also toured positions in village of Cakanovac near the city of Presevo and the field near the village of Miratovac, where members of armed forces perform surveillance and discover attempts of illegal border crossings with patrols, control posts and ambushes.
"It is a pleasure to see that police and army systems function well together, directed towards the same goal," Djordjevic said.
During the recent visit of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban on Sept. 5, Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic announced that Serbia will not accept more illegal migrants, noting that the "situation is different from the beginning of the (migrant) crisis" as more than 80 percent of the migrants now are economic ones, coming from Afghanistan.
On that occasion it was announced that Hungarian army and police will assist their Serbian colleagues at Serbia's borders with both Bulgaria and Macedonia.
Last year, more than 700,000 migrants crossed Serbian territory on their way to the EU fleeing from armed conflicts in the Middle East and Africa, while some 5,000 new migrants are currently located in Serbia.
