WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — The International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent (IFRC) has launched an emergency appeal for some 3.3 million Swiss francs to help Macedonia assist the thousands of primarily Middle Eastern refugees that have poured into the country this year.
More than 80,000 refugees have fled into Macedonia from Greece this year, drastically increasing the average arrival of people to about 4,500 per day, a 10 percent increase since June, the IFRC said.
"The need for humanitarian aid continues to grow and it is vital for us to receive more support in order to scale up our operations and continue assisting these vulnerable people," Red Cross of Macedonia Secretary General Sait Saiti said.
The emergency appeal, the IFRC explained, would help the Red Cross and Macedonia support some 110,000 people with getting food, water, hygiene kits as well as other goods and needed emergency health assistance for the next seven months.
In August, Macedonia declared a state of emergency over the crisis with refugees, who overwhelmingly seek more prosperous EU member states like Germany as their final destination.
Many Macedonians, however, have expressed grave concern that the EU-member countries are seeking ways to prevent many of the refugees from entering the bloc, thus leaving smaller and economically vulnerable non-member countries like Macedonia or Serbia with a huge number of migrants.
Earlier in the week, the European Parliament backed European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker’s proposal to relocate some 160,000 refugees throughout EU member states over the next two years. Some EU member states, including Denmark and Romania, have already expressed unwillingness to accept the refugee quota.
