The snow arrived in Belgrade 10 days ago. At the time, there were 1,600 people sleeping unprotected in the open, sheltering in abandoned buildings and burning anything to stay warm.
Last weekend, temperatures fell as low as minus 16C and the number of people stranded in the Serbian capital reached 2,000. There is 30cm of snow here and none of these people are clothed or equipped for this type of weather.
Back in November, the local authorities began to harass civil society groups, eventually stopping their vital work — such as distributing warm clothes. In the past 24 hours, there have been seven cases of frostbite in Belgrade.
Yesterday I saw an eight-year-old boy queuing in the snow for his only meal of the day, given to him by a group of volunteers. I asked him where he slept and he pointed towards the derelict building towering over us — no showers, toilets, electricity or running water.
Cold snap transforms Europe - in pictures
In Serbia there are thousands of people alone with no protection, many of them children. I arrived here at the end of summer when it was still considered a transit country. There was a constant flow of people in and out despite the official closure of the Balkan route by the European Union.
Then the situation started to change. It felt like countries on the Balkan route were trying to outdo one another with progressively harsher deterrence methods. Now these have been combined with one of the harshest winters in recent years. The real problem is the lack of political will to address the immediate needs of these vulnerable people.
This a failure of the EU, which has neglected the glaring fact that its ill-planned policies have not stopped the flow of people nor provided legal means for them to travel safely.
Pretending this route is closed and these people do not exist is not the solution. Whatever you think about their right to travel to and within Europe, they deserve to be treated as human beings, with dignity.
