Her name is Neguyen Thi Thuy which is a quite unusual name among migrants in the Reception Center in Principovac. It is indeed unusual because it does not belong to any of the countries whose citizens typically come and pass through Serbia. Even though Neguyen arrived from a far away Vietnam under strange circumstances, she gave birth to a baby boy and applied for asylum in Serbia.

She fled the difficult life in Vietnam a year and a half ago, already pregnant, hoping to start a new chapter in Germany with a friend who already lived there. But destiny had a different plan and it led her to the Reception Center in Principovac in which this 33-year-old woman is the favorite resident while her eight-month-old son Van Hau is a small mascot of the Center.

"A good friend of mine who has been living in Germany for 11 years, talked me into coming to Europe. First I arrived to Ukraine by plane where I met three of my countrymen, all close to my age, who came to Ukraine from Moscow. Their goal was also to reach Western Europe so they suggested that I accompany them to Hungary "by taxi" and then take it from there," she said. In this situation, "taxi" is an euphemism for smugglers. The small Vietnamese company gets arrested by the Hungarian police and escorted to the Serbian border with strict orders to leave the Hungarian territory.

"So I found myself in Serbia, where I had never been before," she recalls. After Thi Thuy and her Vietnamese countrymen received initial emergency support from the staff of the Commissariat for Refugees and Migration at the Reception Center in Subotica, they have been accommodated at the Reception Center in Principovac.

Mid-September 2017, only a month after she was admitted to Principovac, this young woman gives birth to a healthy boy in a hospital in Sremska Mitrovica. The baby boy is progressing well, nurtured with all the love and care of his mother. However, the boy’s father stayed in Vietnam and Thi Thuy invited him to come to Serbia where she recently applied for asylum.

"Serbia is good for children. In Vietnam I worked in rice fields, raising children is expensive, schools are expensive. It’s much better here. The Serbs are good people, they are not Ali Babe (the usual term for thieves and scammers)," says Thi Thuy.

Though initially it seemed that she might not fit into the life of the Center with ease, since she didn’t speak any language other than her native Vietnamese, and nobody understood her, Thi Thuy adepted very well and everyone accepted her. She is always engaged with her baby but also receives a lot of help from the others in the Center. Well-accepted, content with the child’s progress, she decided to apply for asylum on April 17 at the Police Station in Sid. While waiting for the outcome, she enjoys the precious moments of her son’s growing up.