The EU Border and Coast Guard Agency Frontex reported just over 12,500 irregular crossings along the Western Balkans route in 2025, a 42% drop from the previous year, which has been credited to investment in tighter border enforcement and anti smuggling measures.
However regional and local migration data analysed by Save the Children suggests significant numbers of migrants and refugees continue to arrive in Europe through the Balkans but using more dangerous routes and smuggling networks, with increasing numbers of children invisible in the data and less being spent to protect them.
A Save the Children study in 2025 found that funding for child protection services such as reception and asylum centres, legal aid and guardianship has declined.
The exact number of arrivals is impossible to calculate but in Bosnia and Herzegovina alone, authorities recorded nearly 14,000 new arrivals last year while Slovenian authorities recorded more than 24,000 irregular entries from Croatia. Croatia registered almost 15,000 first-time asylum seekers while Germany, a primary destination country for migrants, registered over 113,000 first time asylum seekers, more than half from Afghanistan, Syria, and Türkiye.
Children travelling along the Balkans route have told our teams about the severe abuse and exploitation they faced on their journey to safety including violence, abuse and extortion by smugglers and criminal groups, and sexual exploitation and informal labour. They also face illegal pushbacks at EU borders where they are met with violence instead of access to services and support.
The findings come as officials meet today for the EU-Western Balkans Senior Officials Meeting on Justice and Home Affairs, and before the EU’s Pact on Migration and Asylum takes effect on 12 June, reshaping how member states manage external borders.
Save the Children said the implementation of the Pact and EU external action must keep child protection at its core, not border management objectives. This requires mapping protection gaps, using strong child specific data and research, and taking shared responsibility across countries of transit and destination.
Federica Toscano, Save the Children’s Senior Advisor for Children on the Move in Europe, said:
“The numbers suggest that there are continued, large protection needs along the Balkan route, at the same time that children are disappearing from the data on migration.
“When children are invisible, they cannot be protected. As children on the move become less visible in official data, the services designed to protect them are disappearing. Children end up being pushed into risk while support services for them are being scaled back.
“Tighter border enforcement at the expense of protection measures is driving children into greater danger, forcing them to take more perilous journeys as the protection they depend on is being cut. The EU must adopt laws and policies grounded in a complete and accurate understanding of migration realities, or it will continue to leave vulnerable children unseen and unprotected along migration routes.”
Due to declining protection funding, the number of reception and asylum centres in the transit countries of Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina has fallen by more than half since 2024, making access to registration and support more difficult for children. From the start of 2024 to April 2026, Save the Children country teams reported that the number of operating asylum and reception centres in Serbia dropped from 11 to 6, while in Bosnia and Herzegovina, just two of four reception centres remain operational.
Other key services for migrant children such as legal aid, guardianship, and psychosocial support have also been cut.
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MEDIA CONTACT: media.team@savethechildren.org.au