'Balkan route' still open to migrants, Serbian minister warns

Migrants from Afghanistan hold hands as they walk along the Serbian-Hungarian border fence at a makeshift camp near the village of Horgos, Serbia, June 14, 2016. REUTERS/Marko Djurica

BELGRADE (Reuters) - Around 100,000 migrants from Middle East, Asia and Africa have passed through Serbia so far in 2016 despite the closure of the so-called 'Balkan route' which hundreds of thousands used last year to reach Western Europe, a Serbian minister said.

"This means that the Balkan route still exists and people are now moving to European Union countries with greater and greater difficulties," the Tanjug news agency quoted Aleksandar Vulin, minister in charge of social welfare, as saying.