February 6 (SeeNews) - The European Commission said on Monday it has awarded 6.1 million euro ($6.55 million) in emergency funding to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) Bulgaria in support of migration management.
Out of the total, 3.6 million euro will be provided to enhance the protection of unaccompanied children, carry out voluntary returns and provide reintegration support as well as assistance, information and counselling to migrants, the European Commission said in a statement.
The remaining 2.5 million euro will be provided to IOM to complement the actions already implemented by the interior ministry in order to improve migration management and the Bulgarian asylum system.
The award decisions complement the EU funding granted to Bulgaria since October 2016, which amounted to a total of 149 million euro under the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund and the Internal Security Fund. The emergency funding comes on top of the 91 million euro already allocated to Bulgaria under the national programmes for 2014-2020.
In January, the government press office quoted Bulgarian prime minister Boyko Borissov as saying that in the last two months there has been zero pressure coming from refugees on the country's borders.
($ = 0.9308 euro)