We need your support. The number of people crossing into Europe to seek a life of freedom, safety, and dignity is currently the highest it has been since 2016 . The route through the Balkans now sees the highest numbers of people crossing, and northern Serbia has become a major hotspot over the past year. Collective Aid’s Subotica Project in northern Serbia supports more than 2,500 refugees and migrants forced to sleep rough in abandoned buildings each month. The biggest groups are Afghans fleeing the Taliban and Syrians escaping the grinding 11-year civil war in their country. Other people on the move come from North Africa, the Middle East, and Pakistan. Collective Aid's team of volunteers drives out 6 days a week to 9 locations along Serbia’s borders with Croatia, Hungary, and Romania to distribute essential food, clothing, and hygiene items. We provide a mobile shower, laundry, and phone-charging service, and bring drinking water to the abandoned buildings and train carriages in which refugees and migrants are forced to sleep. We also document and share the abuse that people on the move suffer at the hands of border police and other authorities to the Border Violence Monitoring Network. We are one of the few humanitarian NGOs operating in the area.

Hundreds of violent illegal push-backs by police and border guards at Serbia’s borders with Europe take place on a daily basis. People on the move seeking to cross into Europe to access their legal right to claim asylum are regularly stripped of their possessions, illegally detained, beaten, and forcibly pushed back into Serbia. Many are left with debilitating injuries from police batons or boots, dogs, razor wire, and pepper spray. With little access to running water or sanitation in the squats, many individuals also suffer from scabies and other easily preventable diseases. The need for clothing, food, and hygiene items is therefore extremely high, and will continue to grow as the number of individuals in northern Serbia increases throughout the summer.

Collective Aid is a small volunteer-led registered organisation, and one of the few grassroots NGOs operating in northern Serbia. In several locations we are the only group providing the services we do. We do not spend donations on salaries or marketing budgets. All donations to this appeal will contribute directly to supporting people on the move access the essential services they need to survive and find some dignity in a hostile environment. 

Donating just: 

• € 15 ( $16; £13) can provide food packs containing potatoes, onions, eggs, and rice for 12 individuals; 
• € 30 ( $32; £26) can provide enough hygiene items (razors, soap, wet wipes, toothbrushes, toothpaste) for 41 individuals to choose two each; 
• € 50 ( $53; £43) can provide 26 pairs of clean underwear and socks. 
• € 75 ( $79; £65) can provide all of the above to 19 people sleeping rough in northern Serbia.

With your support, we can provide people on the move in Serbia with access to some of the basic services and dignity that every person has the right to enjoy. Please join us!