Starting from 2015, the Balkan countries, alongside with Greece and Macedonia on the front-line, became the most frequently used route for the unprecedented influx of non-regional migrants and refugees that had fled from the Middle East and Africa, risking their lives on their way to the western European countries. Syrians fleeing their country's ongoing civil war and Afghans looking to escape the ongoing war with Taliban rebels made up the first and second largest groups of migrants, respectively. Deteriorating security and grinding poverty in Iraq, Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, Somalia, Eritrea, and Morocco have also contributed to the migrant influx.
Having in consideration that Macedonia served only as a transit and not as a destination country for the majority of the refugees fleeing from the Middle East and Africa, in most of the cases the refugees would leave the country in the legally established period of 72 hours. However, due to various reasons a number of refugees have stayed at the transit centres for longer periods of time, up to few months and in some cases up to one year.
The country enacted numerous measures in order to insure safe transit of the migrants and refugees, including amendment of the Law on Asylum and temporary protection, organization of transportation, involvement of the Macedonian army, establishment of temporary camps at the south and the north border, etc.
The current main challenges related with migrants and refugees include:
- continuous provision of humanitarian aid and first response services
- lack of strategies for addressing the social exclusion and stereotypes against migrants and refugees
- capacity building of professionals working for the benefit of migrants and refugees, as well as institutional capacity building
- enhancing the existing referral mechanism and promote multiagency cooperation
- design and implement action plans for the integration of migrants and refugees into their host communities
KMOP is actively engaged in developing tools facilitating the acceptance of migrants and refugees by recipient communities. Our efforts and initiatives come during the phase of the actual assimilation of the migrant population within the community, after having their basic needs covered. This second stage is of paramount importance, since the migrant / refugee should be in a position to live independently and cover their own needs, disengaged from any first response or humanitarian support provided until then. For this purpose, we use alternative inclusion vehicles, like: promotion to the labour market, by building basic skills and competences, as well as familiarizing the target group with the particularities of the country context; empowerment of citizenship and development of civic participation models in recipient communities; easing of intercultural & interreligious differences and alleviating phenomena of racism and xenophobia; fostering tolerance and intercommunity dialogue, following a human rights’ approach and respecting diversity.
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