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A document from 2018 shows that SDSM leader Venko Filipce (then Healthcare Minister) voted in favor of opening a migrant camp in Bardovci, near Skopje. The revelation comes as Filipce surprisingly made an all out attack on the Government, after speculative reports in the British press that the UK asked Macedonia to host some of its refused asylum seekers. Filipce said that migrants bring with them crime, rapes and diseases, and began an online petition against the idea – even though Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski sternly denied the writing in the British press and said that he will not allow Macedonia to host migrants from other countries.
It is absurd to accuse VMRO-DPMNE of building camps or admitting migrants. There is no evidence that the VMRO-DPMNE Government was negotiating on this issue. VMRO-DPMNE led the Government that managed the largest migrant wave and protected Europe, said Digital Transformation Minister Stefan Andonovski in an interview, as he disclosed the document from 2018, showing how Filipce voted on the issue of opening a migrant camp near Skopje.
The SDSM led Government that was installed in 2017, and SDSM as an opposition party in the previous years, were very supportive of the migrants who were crossing Macedonia in their millions during the large 2015 – 2016 crisis, and SDSM affiliated activists were facilitating the movement of migrants and rebuking the VMRO led Government when it eventually closed the border with Greece. After being installed in power, a number of far left SDSM ministers pushed the idea of legal changes that would open Macedonia for reception of larger numbers of migrants and temporarily hosted about 400 refugees from Afghanistan after that country fell to the Taliban.
