Updates from the borders, 08. Oct 2015, 21:00

Serbian - Macedonian border

- PRESEVO - The situation is getting worse again, waiting hours rises to 8 for refugees to be registered and main street is getting filled with a long queue again. Heavy rain today and lack of supplies! More help is urgently needed, approx. 20 volunteers on site now, but some are leaving soon. Volunteers from various teams distributing food, water and tea and also raincoats - they are hard to buy there in large quantities, so please bring them if you can, even large trash bags are good for use as raincoats.

- Part of the volunteering team sleeps in rented apartment arranged by Youth Center with 6 beds, but it's full for Thursday.

- Contacts: Agon from the Youth Office when you come close only: Tel. +381 628 54 94 69 or go directly to the office for instructions or contact Xhelal Hasani from the Center of Solidarity and Advancement Tel. +381 633 74 034, xhelal_hasani (at) hotmail.com when nearby.

- You can also contact Frantisek +420 774 673 864, who is coordinating efforts of Czech team. Call only when trying to locate him on site.

Hungary

- DONATIONS FOR MIGRATION AID and for SOS-BAMAKO HUNGARY NEEDED!

Since asylum-seekers no longer cross Budapest, the refugee crisis is less "visible" and the press also focuses on other topics. We receive less and less donations, our storages are getting empty. At the same time, there are twice as many asylum-seekers by the border areas than they were in peek periods in the Tranzit Zones of Budapest a month ago. They are hungry and thirsty and often have to wait several hours in one train station without supplies. We need your help to be able to provide them with some food and drinks."

- Information about donations from abroad: http://www.migrationaid.net/english/

- Please see regular daily updates about what is needed and how to donate at https://www.facebook.com/migrationaidhungary and please donate!

- BUDAPEST - Every day you can go to BERKOCSIS STR. 41 on 11:00, just look for the green door to the basement, they are preparing thousands of food packs for Hegyeshalom or sort clothes. If you can bring something, they always need: banana, yoghurt, triangle cheese, cereal bars, chocolate bars, rolls, paprika, apples.

- BEREMEND, MAGYARBOLY - Refugees are continuously passing through Beremend, but all volunteers has been expelled from both border crossing and Magyarboly train station so no help is provided. If you know more, please let us know.

- HEGYESHALOM - Migration Aid's operative team is looking for volunteers at the Hegyeshalom border. Volunteers would be working in team of four in 12 hrs shifts. (6am-6pm, 6pm-6am). The volunteers are responsible to take care of the refugees, which primarily includes the distribution of donations and keeping the site clean. Volunteers are leaving daily from warehouse in Verseny utca, Budapest. First car at 4pm which also transports the daily supply and another one at 4am with the volunteers. Please see scheduling of volunteers shift for Hegyeshalom at http://bit.ly/1VueVBD

For more information contact Andras Siewert, Tel.: +36 30 895 1917, E-mail: operations (at) migrationaid.net, https://www.facebook.com/siewert.org

- ZAKANY - 20-25 volunteers today, delivered water, food, event hot meal, to refugees in trains. 5-6 trains a day with 800-1000 refugees each, bound to Hegyeshalom. Volunteers and supplies for weekend are needed, as some of them leaves on friday. Number of supplies and volunteers here is volatile.

- Team of volunteers "SOS Budapest - Bamako" is accepting donations for Zakany, contact them at https://www.facebook.com/Budapest-Bamako-SOS-Refugee-161590304178147 , where you also can see what is needed there.
Refugees at Zakany constantly need water and food for lunchpackets (bananas, apples, sliced bread, sliced cheese, muesli bars), also baby food and diapers. Please donate and help them. You can also send money via http://www.gofundme.com/sosrefugee

Croatia - Serbia border

- BAPSKA - Thousands of refugees during night and day, highest numbers so far. In the morning, border has been closed for 2 hours because of Croatian bus drivers strike. 350 refugees got stranded in the buses, but that helped them at least from rain. Czech team managed to keep situation calm.

- Situation is calm during the day, but is getting much intense during the night. Almost all major NGOs shut down their operations before midnight, but main wave of buses comes between 1-4 AM. So there is an urgent lack of people during the weekdays, or better say, weeknights. Please plan your trips so you can stay few days into the weekdays, not only weekends.

- Czech NGO Človek v tísni (PIN), which is one of the most respectable humanitarian NGOs, deployed their contact persons in Šid/Bapska. They are supporting volunteers and now they are exploring possibilities to establish a "permanent" settlement somewhere nearby for volunteers to sleep in warm place with showers. Temperatures significantly dropped and it's cold and windy.

- All volunteers in Serbia must fill a short form and be registered to police, our volunteers went through the registration today and it is only a small form. System has been established to deliver all forms to police station in Šid via one person.

- Raincoats needed. Also 5l and 0,5l water packages, gloves, plastic cups and spoons, lot of black tea bags, duct tape, cookies, chocolate bars, bananas.

- Volunteers needed and welcomed but please be ready for working long and late night. We also ask volunteers not to bring any alcohol. Coordinators are working on code of conduct for volunteers because there has been some cases of violation of acceptable behavior by volunteers.

- Clothes: warm jackets and other warm clothes, gloves, hats, SHOES! (especially 38-44 size, but all sizes are good, especially mens), new SOCKS!, bags (backpacks, ikea bags, plastic waste bags). Also mens trousers - jeans are problematic to fit, please try to collect tracksuits and other loosely worn trousers, also leggins for women. Food in larger quantities is problem to delivery across the border, so please buy it in Serbia/Croatia directly. Don't bring t-shirts and other summer clothes, there is no time tom deliver them at all and they takes space in the storages.

- Help in the area on Serbian side is coordinated by Misa, her number: +420 774 195 786. When arriving on place at Bapska to volunteer on both sides of the border, please report yourself at the organizing team and please obey they instruction.

- Help on Croatian side provided by Croatian/international team. No need for more volunteers now, there are some informations that this side will be dismantled on Friday because turning and waiting point for Croatian buses will be built just few meters from the border, but not confirmed yet, we will see how this develop.

- Volunteers in the Czech republic could use http://uprchlici.respublica.cz to assign their timeslots and offer/demand transport to Croatia/Serbia.

- Volunteers traveling via Hungary/Serbia and Croatia/Serbia border crossings are still experiencing problems at the Serbian customs offices, which does not want to let them in the country without paying custom duties and declarations. Shoes, clothes and large quantities of food are also problem. Always try to reduce amount of aid you carry so it does not seem suspicious, also try to pretend you are not aid workers but just tourists. Cover supplies with your personal belonging and luggage. In case of problems, there is a possibility to leave your supplies at Tovarnik at Croatian side, but the size is limited. Use Tovarnik/Sid border crossing.

- Location of makeshift camp is near Sid at Serbian side, when approaching Sid from west (from Tovarnik) turn left on light, and after 2,5 km turn slightly left when road turns right (fork type of crossroad), then through the fields cca 3,5 km and you arrive on the spot.

- Even when working on Serbian site at Bapska border crossing, try to set permanently Croatian phone operators to stay within EU roaming prices.

Beograd

- Volunteers helping at Miksaliste (Mostarska 5, Beograd) set up also their VolunteerSpot account and are asking anyone who is in Belgrade to sign up for various tasks needed to be done there. Visit http://www.volunteerspot.com/login/entry/4179297180119 to see what is needed there and to sign up for timeslots.

Other news

- There will be parliamentary elections in one month in Croatia, so it could affect situation.

- If you are on the road and need to know which refugee areas have urgent needs please check www.refugeemap.com, which is updated daily by a team of volunteers. If you are online regularly and could contribute in updating new spots and helping field volunteers this way, please contact them at https://www.facebook.com/RefugeeMap/

- You can follow map with all spots with refugees here: http://umap.openstreetmap.fr/cs-cz/map/refugee-crisis-eu_55091#6/46.883/20.314

- International organization for migration issued new report about refugee crisis, please read @ :: iom.int.

- Archive of these updates could be found at http://pastebin.com/u/michalberg

- Information about times of arrival of special trains from Tovarnik to Botovo/Zakany are published on twitter account of Croatian government - https://twitter.com/VladaRH

- Police department in Burgenland (Eastern Austria) has opened a 24hr hotline. Family members who are looking for their relatives can call: +43 591 331 033 33

- If you are willing to donate money to Czech team in Serbia, you can use my paypal paypal (at) esports.cz and I will move the funds immediately to the people on site. You can also donate donation (at) migrationaid.net for MigrationAid. Thanks to those who already donated!

- Czech only: Odkaz na užitečný manuál pro dobrovolníky: http://dobrovolnici.jdem.cz - určitě čtěte před odjezdem. Pro vjezd do Srbska stačí občanka, ale pas je vždycky lepší mít.

- When traveling to help, always take headlight, reflexion vest, good shoes, protective gloves and warm clothes and be prepared for rain. And always try to contact anyone in charge of coordination on site and obey his instructions and forget about any alcohol on site. Please also note that situation may change at any time.

Source :: pastebin.com/UkLavd5X, 08. Oct 2015.