Exodus:Balkan routes of human tragedy

  • General characteristics-
    The Western Balkan route describes two main migratory flows: from the Western Balkan countries themselves, and the secondary movements of mainly Asian migrants who originally entered the European Union through the Bulgarian-Turkish or Greek-Turkish land or sea borders and then proceed, through the Western Balkans, into Hungary.

This route shows the highest relative increase at the European Union level in detections of Syrian and Somali nationals. After arriving in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, migrants typically make use of an open taxi system which profits significantly from smuggling people to the Serbian borders.

  • Migratory trends
    The irregular migration trends in the Western Balkans region underwent rapid changes following the introduction of visa-free travel within the European Union. In just four years, the region transitioned from being largely a source country for irregular migration to mostly a transit area of irregular migrants from Greece.Wars in Middle East,Syria and Iraq made the the region vulnerable to the exodus from Syria  and Turkey, where citizens of  two countries Syria and Iraq due to IS mass killing and civil wars had to leave and find a safer place.

Europe is the destination.

(Frontex-CSSD)

Foto credit:UNICEF