BELGRADE: Until six months ago, the Lovimi family from Iran had never heard of Serbia.
But here they are, currently in Belgrade, after arriving without visas last August, waiting to continue on to Germany, where they plan to build a new and better life in the future.
The family of four comes from the town of Ahvaz in the province of Khuzestan in Iran’s southwest, where the majority of the population is Arabic.
They complain that, as Arabs, they have few rights in Iran, their children are forced to learn Farsi and not Arabic in school, and they are treated as second-class citizens, with little hope of finding a job.
So, when Belgrade and Tehran abolished reciprocal tourist visas last August, the Lovimis decided to take their chance and come to Belgrade. And from there, they hoped to continue on to the EU and a better future.
The Lovimis are not the only ones. According to official statistics, around 7,000 fellow Iranians have arrived in Serbia since August, intially as tourists, but some of them with no intention of returning home.
Shahla Lovimi, a 40-year-old housewife, says she and her family had originally gone to Turkey with the intention of carrying on from there to Germany via Italy.
“We have never had the intention to go through Belgrade. We have never heard about Belgrade. We went to Turkey and the smuggler took us here,” she said.
She and her car mechanic husband and their two children, aged 11 and 17, paid the smuggler €22,000 ($27,000).
For two months, they lived in various Belgrade apartments and hostels, waiting for the smuggler to pick them up and take them to the EU by car.
But when the smuggler vanished four months ago, leaving them on their own, the Lovimis turned to Info Park, a local non-governmental group helping refugees.
According to Info Park’s communication officer Stevan Tatalovic, a number of Iranians are using the visa liberalization agreement to come to Europe and stay there illegally as migrants.
Their intention is not to seek asylum in Serbia, but to continue on, often to Britain or other EU countries, Tatalovic said.
Serbia argues that visa liberalization will help develop tourism between the two countries and attract business investment in the longer term.
Nevertheless, Serbian Trade Minister Rasim Ljajic said the two countries are aware of, and will clamp down on any possible abuses of the visa-free scheme. However, Info Park’s Tatalovic said that with direct flights between Tehran and Belgrade resuming after 27 years, up to 600 Iranians could soon be arriving in Serbia every week.
Two airlines are already offering flights and a third will follow in April and most of the flights are already fully booked until the end of summer.
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Iranians use visa-free travel to Serbia to flee to EU
Iranians use visa-free travel to Serbia to flee to EU
Death toll climbs after trash site collapse buries dozens in Philippines
MANILA: Hard hat-wearing rescue workers and backhoes dug through rubble in search of survivors on Saturday in the shadow of a mountain of garbage that buried dozens of landfill employees in the central Philippines, killing at least four.
About 50 sanitation workers were buried when refuse toppled onto them Thursday from what a city councillor estimated was a height of 20 storys at the Binaliw Landfill, a privately operated facility in Cebu City.
Rescuers were now facing the danger of further collapse as they navigated the wreckage, Cebu rescuer Jo Reyes told AFP on Saturday.
“Operations are ongoing as of the moment. It is continuous. (But) from time to time, the landfill is moving, and that will temporarily stop the operation,” she said.
“We have to stop for a while for the safety of our rescuers.”
Information from the disaster site has been emerging slowly, with city employees citing the lack of signal from the dumpsite, which serviced Cebu and other surrounding communities.
Joel Garganera, a Cebu City council member, told AFP that as of 10:00 am (0200 GMT), the death toll from the disaster had climbed to four, with 34 still missing.
“The four casualties were inside the facility when it happened... They have these staff houses inside where most people who were buried stayed,” he said.
“It’s very difficult on the part of the rescuers, because there are really heavy (pieces of steel), and every now and then, the garbage is moving because of the weight from above,” Garganera said.
“We are hoping against hope here and praying for miracles,” he said when asked about the timeline for rescue efforts.
“We cannot just jump to the retrieval (of bodies), because there are a lot of family members who are within the property waiting for any positive result.”
At least 12 employees have so far been pulled alive from the garbage and hospitalized.
- ‘Alarming’ height -
“Every now and then when it rains, there are landslides happening around the city of Cebu ... how much more (dangerous is that) for a landfill or a mountain that is made of garbage?” Garganera said in a phone call with AFP.
“The garbage is like a sponge, they really absorb water. It doesn’t (take) a rocket scientist to say that eventually, the incident will happen.”
Garganera described the height from which the trash fell as “alarming,” estimating the top of the pile had stood 20 storys above the area struck.
Drivers had long complained about the dangers of navigating the steep road to the top, he added.
Photos released by police on Friday showed a massive mound of trash atop a hill directly behind buildings that a city information officer had told AFP also contained administrative offices.
Garganera noted that the disaster was a “sad, double whammy” for the city, as the facility was the “lone service provider” for Cebu and adjacent communities.
The landfill “processes 1,000 tons of municipal solid waste daily,” according to the website of its operator, Prime Integrated Waste Solutions.
Calls and emails to the company have so far gone unreturned.
Rita Cogay, who operates a compactor at the site, told AFP on Friday she had stepped outside to get a drink of water just moments before the building she had been in was crushed.
“I thought a helicopter had crashed. But when I turned, it was the garbage and the building coming down,” the 49-year-old said.
About 50 sanitation workers were buried when refuse toppled onto them Thursday from what a city councillor estimated was a height of 20 storys at the Binaliw Landfill, a privately operated facility in Cebu City.
Rescuers were now facing the danger of further collapse as they navigated the wreckage, Cebu rescuer Jo Reyes told AFP on Saturday.
“Operations are ongoing as of the moment. It is continuous. (But) from time to time, the landfill is moving, and that will temporarily stop the operation,” she said.
“We have to stop for a while for the safety of our rescuers.”
Information from the disaster site has been emerging slowly, with city employees citing the lack of signal from the dumpsite, which serviced Cebu and other surrounding communities.
Joel Garganera, a Cebu City council member, told AFP that as of 10:00 am (0200 GMT), the death toll from the disaster had climbed to four, with 34 still missing.
“The four casualties were inside the facility when it happened... They have these staff houses inside where most people who were buried stayed,” he said.
“It’s very difficult on the part of the rescuers, because there are really heavy (pieces of steel), and every now and then, the garbage is moving because of the weight from above,” Garganera said.
“We are hoping against hope here and praying for miracles,” he said when asked about the timeline for rescue efforts.
“We cannot just jump to the retrieval (of bodies), because there are a lot of family members who are within the property waiting for any positive result.”
At least 12 employees have so far been pulled alive from the garbage and hospitalized.
- ‘Alarming’ height -
“Every now and then when it rains, there are landslides happening around the city of Cebu ... how much more (dangerous is that) for a landfill or a mountain that is made of garbage?” Garganera said in a phone call with AFP.
“The garbage is like a sponge, they really absorb water. It doesn’t (take) a rocket scientist to say that eventually, the incident will happen.”
Garganera described the height from which the trash fell as “alarming,” estimating the top of the pile had stood 20 storys above the area struck.
Drivers had long complained about the dangers of navigating the steep road to the top, he added.
Photos released by police on Friday showed a massive mound of trash atop a hill directly behind buildings that a city information officer had told AFP also contained administrative offices.
Garganera noted that the disaster was a “sad, double whammy” for the city, as the facility was the “lone service provider” for Cebu and adjacent communities.
The landfill “processes 1,000 tons of municipal solid waste daily,” according to the website of its operator, Prime Integrated Waste Solutions.
Calls and emails to the company have so far gone unreturned.
Rita Cogay, who operates a compactor at the site, told AFP on Friday she had stepped outside to get a drink of water just moments before the building she had been in was crushed.
“I thought a helicopter had crashed. But when I turned, it was the garbage and the building coming down,” the 49-year-old said.
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