January 23 (SeeNews) - Serbia's government said it will receive additional funding worth 4 million euro ($4.29 million) from the European Commission (EC) to improve conditions at its reception centres for refugees.
The financing will be used for food for refugees in reception centres across Serbia, the European Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid and Emergency Management Christos Stylianides said during a visit to the Krnjaca asylum seekers accommodation centre in central Serbia, as quoted by the government in a statement on Saturday.
Serbia does not plan to increase the capacity of its asylum seekers accommodation centres, but to improve their quality, labour and welfare minister Aleksandar Vulin said during the visit.
"This emergency assistance will help provide food, water, hygiene and other essential items, as well as healthcare," Stylianides said in a separate statement on Sunday.
Since the beginning of the migrant crisis, more than 44 million euro have been allocated to support Serbia, both through humanitarian aid and pre-accession assistance, making the EU the largest donor in this respect, the EC said.
Serbia has also benefitted from support via the EU Civil Protection Mechanism, with ten EU member states providing some 246,000 items to Serbia such as blankets, sleeping bags, mattresses, beds and heaters.
Since May 2015, Serbia and other countries in the Western Balkans have been facing an unprecedented refugee crisis. In 2015 and in the first quarter of 2016, more than 920,000 refugees and migrants, primarily from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq, passed through Serbia on their way to Hungary and Croatia.
After the closure of the so-called Western Balkans migration route in early 2016, the number of refugees stranded in Serbia stands now at an estimated 7,550, the EC said.
According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the EU-Turkey agreement from March, 2016 brought migration flows through the Eastern Mediterranean and the Western Balkan route to a relative standstill but left 73,286 migrants and refugees stranded in Greece, Macedonia, Serbia, Hungary, Croatia, Bulgaria and Slovenia as of the end of September 30.
($ = 0.9327 euro)