Baby girl among 10 migrants dead in Balkan river tragedy

A nine-month-old baby girl and her mother were among 10 migrants who died when their boat capsized crossing a river that divides Serbia and Bosnia, rescuers told AFP as a search continued Friday.

Police said the boat was carrying around two dozen migrants when it flipped on the Drina River near Ljubovija in Serbia early on Thursday.

Ten bodies were later recovered from the river.

Rescuers found 18 survivors, including three children, on the riverbank who had managed to reach the shore.

Bosnian authorities told AFP that they could not yet confirm the nationalities of the dead.

Both Serbia and Bosnia are on the so-called "Balkan route" that migrants use to reach the EU.

Since the refugee crisis of 2015, over a million people from Asia and Africa have passed through Serbia, according to the Serbian government.

Most of those trying to cross in recent months are from Syria, Afghanistan, Turkey, Morocco, and Pakistan, based on government data.

The number of migrants transiting through Serbia has significantly decreased over the years, with 10,389 illegal entries recorded in the first half of 2024, nearly 70 percent fewer than last year.

Serbian officials credit this decline to closer cooperation with Austrian police and the EU's border management agency, Frontex.

Many migrants use smugglers to enter Serbia from Bulgaria and North Macedonia before attempting to cross into EU members Hungary or Croatia.

It is not yet known whether smugglers were with the migrants on the Drina when the tragedy happened.