North Macedonia police discover van with 43 young migrants

SKOPJE, Macedonia – Police in North Macedonia say they have found 43 migrants in an abandoned van shortly after the driver tried to evade a police block.

Police said in a statement Saturday that a patrol stopped a van near the central town of Shtip on Thursday.

Police found 43 migrants from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan, aged 16 to 25, in the van. They are believed to have entered North Macedonia from Greece on their way to Serbia.

The migrants were detained and transferred to a shelter; they will be deported back to Greece.

The so-called Balkan route was shut down for migrants in 2016 after a huge spike in arrivals in 2015, but traffickers still use smuggling routes through the Balkans.