Balkan nations to boost co-operation to manage migrant influx

SARAJEVO, Bosnia – Several nations along a migrant route through the Balkans have urged joint efforts to manage a renewed influx through the region toward Western Europe.

Officials meeting in Bosnia’s capital, Sarajevo, Thursday called for co-operation in the exchange of information and data about the migrants entering any of the countries.

The meeting included officials from Greece, Hungary, Macedonia, Albania, Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia, Croatia, Slovenia and Austria.

Bosnia’s Interior Minister Dragan Mektic said “we must not allow the crisis from 2015 to repeat itself” when 1 million people entered Europe, hundreds of thousands of them through the Balkans.

The flow eased for a while after countries closed down borders to free entry in 2016, but it has recently surged as migrants have turned to war-ravaged Bosnia avoiding more heavily guarded routes.