Without prior notice, Serbia has decided to deny the entry of Cubans to its territory. This Wednesday, 17 travelers who planned to fly from Holguín to Belgrade with a stop in Frankfurt were rejected by the Condor company, which operates the route to Germany.
After demanding an explanation for what happened, the Cubans received a letter from the company to which they had access 14ymedio and in which it is stated that the immigration authorities of the Balkan country have denied entry to citizens of the Island. “Therefore, the affected persons were forced to travel back to Cuba immediately without entering Serbia. This has generated considerable expenses and inconvenience for our clients,” the document states.
This reason has led Lufthansa to reject Cubans from their Frankfurt flights bound for Serbia, in the belief that they will be denied entry into the country. “At the moment, these are Cuban citizens who want to enter Serbia without a Schengen visa, which gives them access to the zone made up of most of the European Union countries (except Ireland, Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia and Cyprus) and several countries associated with the zone (Switzerland, Norway, Liechtenstein and Iceland and the states of Monaco, Vatican City and San Marino).
“Since Condor cannot guarantee that you will be accepted by Lufthansa on the flight to Belgrade and that you are also exposing yourself to the risk of being denied entry by Serbian border control, Condor offers you a refund of the flight price,” the text ends. signed by the company’s regional manager, apologizing to customers for not being able to transport them.
At this time, the Condor website no longer sells tickets to Belgrade from Varadero and, departing from Holguin, there is nothing until May. In the case of departures from Havana, all are with Copa and involve Condor in part of the journey to Germany.
Serbia’s decision comes unexpectedly and when many Cubans had already purchased tickets to travel to the country, which they were using as stepping stone to Europe taking advantage of the visa waiver. The alarms went off when on November 22, Condor rejected a group of 22 Cubans who were going from Varadero to Frankfurt, where they would make a stopover to continue, with Lufthansa, to Belgrade.
The airline’s communications director in Germany, Magdalena Hauser, said this week a 14ymedio that it was an isolated case and that the rest of the Cubans had flown normally. This newspaper has contacted the spokeswoman to request more clarifications regarding the new news and is awaiting a response.
The increase in Cuban travelers to Belgrade had effects on the European Union, the final destination of the majority of the island’s exiles who prefer to settle in Spain or, failing that, in a country with a closer language and culture, such as Italy.
Despite the differences between the Twenty-seven and Serbia, due to the close ties of this country with Russia, a recent meeting between the two parties in which migration was discussed, the European authorities requested greater control of arrivals from third countries .
At the end of October, the six countries of the western Balkans agreed in Berlin to toughen the measures after detecting that traffic on this route has multiplied by three in 2022. The movement raised fears that Serbia would begin to request a visa or some other requirement that would complicate the crossing to the Cubans, but apparently the brake has been put on without any communication or norm to which to cling.
________________________
Collaborate with our work:
The team of 14ymedio He is committed to doing serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for accompanying us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time becoming a member of our newspaper. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.
