The European Commission provided Bosnia on Thursday with 1.5 million euros ($1.8 million) to help the impoverished country cope with an influx of migrants passing through on their way towards Western Europe. "The number of refugees and migrants arriving in Bosnia-Herzegovina has increased and we must act swiftly," the European Union's aid commissioner Christos Stylianides said.
The funds should help the Balkan country to meet the migrants' "basic needs and provide emergency shelter, food and health assistance, as well as protection," he said in a statement. More than 5,500 illegal migrants have entered Bosnia since the start of the year, particularly young men, but lately also families with children, notably from Iran and Pakistan.
Their number still does not compare with the hundreds of thousands of migrants fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East, Asia and Africa who arrived in Europe in 2015-16 using the so-called Balkans route.
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