€1.5 MILLION IN HUMANITARIAN ASSISTANCE TO REFUGEES&MIGRANTS IN WESTERN BALKAN

USPA NEWS - Hungary called on Tuesday for more money from the European Union to handle a rising tide of migrants, as a new wave hit its southern border further exposed the cracks in EU policy towards the worst refugee crisis since World War Two. €1.5 million has been decided in assisting refugees and migrants.

EUROPEAN UNION RELEASES MORE MONEY FOR ASSISTANCE OT REFUGEES AND MIGRANTS Ahead of the Summit, the European Commission is releasing an additional €1.5 million in humanitarian funding to assist refugees and migrants in Serbia and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. The aid will support humanitarian partners in helping with the provision of basic emergency services such as drinking water, hygiene, health care, shelter, and protection for refugees and migrants, improvement of the reception centres, and coordination and reporting on migration issues in the region. Christos Stylianides, EU Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Management, said: "The Western Balkans are dealing with an unprecedented number of transiting refugees and migrants. The EU is stepping up its humanitarian aid to provide them with urgently needed relief. This is European solidarity at its core". The European Commission has previously granted over €90 000 in EU humanitarian assistance to the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (on July 31 2015) and €150 000 to Serbia (on August 20, 2015) in response to this emergency situation. The funding went directly to the national Red Cross Societies of the two countries. Overall EU humanitarian aid to support vulnerable refugees and migrants in Serbia and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia now amounts to €1.74 million. In its European Agenda on Migration, the European Commission has set out a comprehensive approach to addressing migration challenges, both in the short and long term. Cooperation and support of third countries, especially those that are in our immediate vicinity, is an essential element of that approach.------------------------------------------------------------------------ HUNGARY BUILT A 175 KM BORDER WITH SERBIA To STOP MIGRANTS-------------------------------------------------The Summit hosted by Austrian Federal Chancellor Werner Faymann, who has invited the Prime Ministers of the Western Balkan 6 (Albania, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo, Montenegro, Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina) as well as of Germany, France, Italy, Croatia and Slovenia to the event. More than 100,000 migrants, many of them refugees from conflicts in the Middle East and Africa, have entered Hungary, part of Europe's Schengen zone of passport-free travel, this year en route to the more affluent countries of western and northern Europe. The influx ticked up on Monday to its highest daily rate this year - 2,093 - as many race to beat a fence that Hungary is building on its 175-km (110-mile) border with Serbia to keep them out. Source: Diplomacy, European Commission, Reuters