‘Flood’ of 10,000 migrants stranded in Serbia with aid supplies running low

The United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) has warned aid supplies are running out for 10,000 migrants currently stranded in Serbia. Charities and aid agencies have been struggling to cope with a huge build-up of people in makeshift camps after European countries further west limited the movement of people across their borders. As bad weather hits the area, doctors are warning of medicine shortages and children suffering from hypothermia.

It is like a big river of people, and if you stop the flow, you will have floods somewhere. That’s what’s happening now.

UNHCR spokeswoman Melita Sunjic.

Dr Ramiz Momeni, London-based founder of the Humanitas Charity, said migrants in Berkasovo, on Serbia’s border with Croatia, urgently need action from international leaders. He said: “It’s an onslaught of people - they just come and come. We don’t have a chance to treat, we don’t have the actual medicine to be given out to them, we don’t have any more rain coats. As you can see people, children of ten days old, hypothermia, we don’t have blankets to give them.” Upwards of 5,000 people are flowing across Balkan borders daily, from Greece into Macedonia and Serbia, both poor former Yugoslav republics with barely the capacity to cope.

There is a lack of food, lack of blankets, we are missing everything.

UNHCR spokeswoman Melita Sunjic

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