October 8 (SeeNews) - The European Commission said on Thursday it has approved additional support of 17 million euro ($19.2 million) to Serbia and Macedonia to help them cope with unprecedented refugee flows.
This new funding is part of EU's overall efforts to deal with the consequences of the Syrian crisis announced earlier by the European Commission, the EU executive said in a statement.
A special measure aims at increasing the capacity of Serbia and Macedonia to effectively and efficiently respond to the migration crisis, enhancing their ability to comprehensively implement their migration policy, including management of migration flows.
Out of the total amount, 10 million euro comes from a special measure adopted by the European Commission to help Serbia and Macedonia cope with the unprecedented refugee flows in these countries.
The other 7 million euro of the funds is being allocated to these two countries in humanitarian aid, as part of the Commission's commitment to allocate a further 200 million euro in 2015 to deal with the consequences of the refugee crisis.
Since late spring 2015, over 200,000 migrants are estimated to have crossed the Western Balkans, the vast majority through Macedonia and Serbia.
The increased flows of migrants, mostly identifying themselves as refugees fleeing civil war in Syria, has exceeded the migration management capacity of these countries and has had a significant impact on the local population in the most affected areas.
($=0.8857 euro)