Thousands cheer on horses in Bosnia log-towing contest
Migrants take new Balkan route through Bosnia
A new Balkan route through Bosnia has opened up for migrants, four years after a crisis in which more than one million people landed on Europe’s shores.
Hundreds of thousands of people fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East, Asia and Africa, took the so-called Balkans route northwest of Greece in 2015 and 2016.
The route was effectively closed in March 2016 and until recently the few still making the journey avoided Bosnia and its mountains.
Instead they opted for a route through Serbia before dodging the Croatian and Hungarian authorities in order to make it into the European Union (EU).
But now an alternative migrants’ itinerary from Greece through Albania, Montenegro and Bosnia has emerged.
The route, according to a western diplomatic source, matches the one taken by arms and drugs traffickers, indicating that human smuggling networks have been established.