MADRID, Spain.- Serbia will require a tourist or work visa for Cubans to travel to this country starting next April 14.
As confirmed by the consul and political advisor of the Serbian Embassy in Havana, Jelena Zivojinovic, to 14yMediothe measure will try to contain illegal emigration.
“We had to apply for a visa,” “Cubans emigrate a lot,” and they have reached the “red illegal migration category,” said the headline. However, this decision could be revoked in the future if the Cubans show that they can travel to Serbia and return to the island, she considered.
Zivojinovic also indicated that the forms and requirements for the visa application will be published on the consulate’s website in the coming days.
In October of last year It had emerged that Serbia —one of the few countries to which citizens of the Caribbean island can go without the need for a visa— was evaluating the possibility of eliminating the free visa for Cubans. The Serbian authorities did suspend this benefit for the citizens of Tunisia and Burundi, due to the increase in the migratory flow.
In recent years, an increase has been reported in the number of Cubans arriving in Belgrade, the Serbian capital, by different means, many of them with the intention of staying and residing in Serbia or crossing borders to reach Italy or Spain.
Although Serbia and Cuba maintain a free visa agreement so far, the border authorities of the European country decide whether or not each traveler is allowed to enter.
In the middle of the current month Around 35 Cubans were held at the “Nikola Tesla” International Airport in Belgrade in deplorable conditions. While this same week a group of 24 Cubans were detained at said airport.
Activists and opponents who have suffered repression and persecution in Cuba have fled to that country in recent years, such as rapper Denis Solís, who arrived in that nation in 2021 after serving eight months in prison, and historian Fernando Almeyda, who was coordinator of Archipelago.
