Detailed checks are being carried out on Montenegrin citizens: Waiting times for entry into Serbia can be over six hours

Due to yesterday's return of a plane carrying 87 men close to Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić from Tivat Airport, Serbia has been conducting detailed checks of Montenegrin citizens at border crossings since last night, resulting in waits of over six hours to enter Serbia.

Some Montenegrin citizens have been banned from entering Serbia under the pretext that they pose a security threat to Serbia. All this time, the highest Montenegrin officials have failed to react to the kind of harassment of Montenegrin citizens at border crossings.

At the Serbian border crossing Gostun, there were kilometer-long queues during the day, and many passengers returned to Montenegro because they could not wait.

Serbia introduced the so-called reciprocal measures after the Montenegrin police and the National Security Agency (ANB) returned a plane to Belgrade yesterday with 87 men of security interest, whom the Serbian opposition and some media outlets say are Vučić's special operations team.

Serbian portal Nova.rs has learned that this group planned to organize several rallies in support of Vučić during his stay at the EU-Western Balkans summit in Tivat, in order to create the impression that the Serbian president enjoys strong support from the citizens of Montenegro.

In apparent retaliation for this, a bus carrying around 20 residents of the Bijelo Polje Nursing Home who were turned back from the Gostun crossing was unable to take a trip to Serbia today, Televizija Vijesti has learned.

A bus full of children from the Cultural and Artistic Society from Kotor was detained at the border with Serbia last night for more than five hours and was only released after midnight, Nova.rs reports.

Another 30 Montenegrin citizens, exclusively men, were detained late last night at the Belgrade airport, where they were only released after detailed checks.

The vice president of the Civic Movement URA, Blažo Radjenović, was not allowed to enter Serbia last night. He is the only bus passenger who was banned from entering. The former director of the Montenegrin police, Nikola Terzić, was also not allowed to enter Serbia last night through the Špiljani border crossing, where he teaches at a university, and this, as he was told, was for reasons of protecting the security of Serbia and its citizens. Terzić told the Vijesti portal that he was surprised and disappointed by this decision by the Serbian state authorities.

And while the highest officials of Montenegro - Prime Minister Milojko Spajić, President Jakov Milatović and Parliament Speaker Andrija Mandić - have been vociferously silent for 24 hours about the attempted "landing" on Tivat and the mistreatment of our citizens at the crossings, only the opposition URA has spoken out, condemning the obvious attempts to destabilize Montenegro ahead of the Tivat Summit.

"Montenegro must not remain silent about actions that discriminate against its citizens or expose them to politically motivated harassment, so we call on the competent institutions to protect the rights of all our citizens," ERO said.