BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) – Thousands of vaccine applicants from Serbia’s neighboring countries gathered in Belgrade on Saturday after Serbian authorities offered foreigners free coronavirus shots if they showed up over the weekend.
Long lines of Bosnians, Montenegrins and northern Macedonians – often entire families – formed in front of the main vaccination center in the Serbian capital, while police watched.
“We do not have vaccines. I came here to get vaccinated, “said Zivko Trajkovski, who is from northern Macedonia. “We are very grateful that we can get vaccinated faster than in Macedonia.”
Zoran Dedic of Bosnia mentioned that his country and Serbia were part of a common federation before Yugoslavia disintegrated in a war in the 1990s. “It doesn’t make a difference, Bosnia or Serbia. It doesn’t matter, “he said.
Most of Serbia’s Balkan neighbors have struggled with shortages and have just begun mass vaccination, while Serbia boasts sufficient supplies and one of the highest per capita vaccination rates in Europe.
The Serbian government has donated vaccine doses to northern Macedonia, Montenegro and Bosnia.
Critics of Serbian populist President Aleksandar Vucic say he is trying to spread his influence in the Balkans and polish the ultranationalist image he gained during the bloody partition of Yugoslavia.
Others say that the vaccines with the AstraZeneca vaccine that Serbia offers to foreigners are approaching the expiration date and should be used as soon as possible, a statement that could not be verified.
Bosnia’s Klix news portal described huge lines of cars forming at border crossings with Serbia on Saturday morning.
Klix reported that Bosnian businessmen were scheduled to receive blows on Saturday after the Serbian Chamber of Commerce offered 10,000 photos to their colleagues in the region.
Serbia has one of the highest inoculation rates in Europe, mainly due to government acquisitions of China’s Sinopharm vaccine and Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine. The country also uses vaccines developed by Pfizer-BioNTech and Oxford-AstraZeneca.
Although more than 2 million people in the country, of 7 million, have so far received at least one blow, Serbia has seen a noticeable decrease in the number of residents who have registered. Officials and doctors link the abandonment in the interest of an increasingly vocal anti-vaccine movement.