The situation regarding the refugees and displaced people in Serbia has never been worse, Mirjana Milenkovski from the UNHCR said on the occasion of the World Refugee Day in Serbia, on Saturday.

Public policy advisor at the IDEAS organisation Tamara Vlaskalin said that hate speech and xenophobia towards migrants residing in Serbia is growing.

The UNHCR said that there is a worrying trend where one percent of the world population is displaced, of this number, almost half are children who are especially threatened.

On June 14, Serbian authorities said 5,478 refugees, asylum seekers and migrants resided in this country, of which 222 are unaccompanied and children separated from their parents on the road.

The growing hate speech and xenophobia phenomenon at this time is interesting to Vlaskalin as the peak of the migrant crisis was in 2015 and 2016.

“We suppose the reason for this is the migrants’ longer stay in Serbia due to inability to cross the border and harsher border control measures in the region,” she said.

“The perpetrators of these acts need to be adequately punished, but we also need clear protection mechanisms for migrant children,” the Adviser added.

“She warned of a Facebook group called “Stop the settlement of migrants” which now has over 330,000 members.

“It's the same as the population of Novi Sad which is alarming enough to take some actions and for media and different organisations to jointly and timely react and objectively inform the public,” Vlaskalin added.