The European Commission said on Friday it is extending close to EUR 91,000 in humanitarian funding to Macedonia to help tackle a migrant influx. The funding that will cover basic needs such as food, water, hygiene kits and primary health care services will be provided to Macedonia’s Red Cross Society to help the organization assist some 4,600 people over the next three months. “Assistance will primarily go to the Reception Centre for asylum seekers in the capital Skopje and at the main train stations at the southern and northern borders of the country,” the EU Commission said in a statement. Thousands of migrants and refugees from the Middle East and Africa have been crossing into Macedonia from Greece in recent months, in the hope of entering the European Union via Hungary. From Macedonia they are travelling to Serbia, which also is one of their transit countries on the so-called ’Balkan route’, before they try to enter Hungary and then proceed farther north in the EU. They are coming mostly from conflict-torn Syria, Eritrea, Iraq or Afghanistan, as well as Mali and Côte d’Ivoire. Serbian authorities say some 61,000 illegal migrants have been registered in transit through the country. To stem the swelling flow of migrants Hungary has started building a wire fence along its border with Serbia.
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