What happened: SIA Veles pressed criminal charges against M.D. (21) from Veles, on reasonable grounds to suspect that he committed the criminal offence “Robbery”. On 09.06.2020, while driving his vehicle Hyundai Ponny, together with an underage individual from Kumanovo, near the village of Karaslari the reported noticed A.S.N. and J.A. from Afghanistan as they were walking on the highway leading from Greece to Serbia. They offered to drive them to the Serbian border for 200 Euros, which the migrants accepted and got inside the vehicle. The driver headed for the old road leading to Veles. At one moment, he stopped the vehicle and asked for 200 Euros for gas. The damaged refused, citing the previous agreement, after which the reported and the teenager physically assaulted them and threatened to pull out weapons on them. After this, the migrants gave them 200 Euros and managed to take a mobile phone which was the possession of the reported individual’s brother.
Brief description of the incident with bias indicators: In this incident the bias motive is the migrant status, with the bias indicators being:
- Ethnic origin – the victims and the attackers belonged to a different ethnic community;
- Location– the irregular migrant route passess through this location, where incidents are common due to the migrant status.
Impact on the victims and the community: These types of incidents call into question the general safety and stability in the country between different ethnic groups in society.
