Pope Francis on Sunday highlighted the plight of thousands of unaccompanied migrant minors, notably on the Balkan route, asking the authorities to show special attention to their needs, Vatican News reported.

“There are many of them!” he said after the Angelus prayer. “Sadly, among those who for various reasons are forced to leave their homeland, there are always dozens of children and young people alone, without their family and exposed to many dangers.”

The pope especially highlighted the Balkan route between Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Croatia, where thousands of people trying to cross European borders are blocked for days, forced to live in makeshift camps in inhumane conditions.

He said that in these days the dramatic situation of the migrants on the “so-called Balkan route” had been brought to his attention.

The pope called on the authorities to provide for those young people. “Let’s ensure that these vulnerable children and adolescents, who are fragile and defenceless, do not lack necessary care and preferential humanitarian channels,” he said ahead of the International Day of Prayer and Reflection Against Human Trafficking, observed on 8 February.

“This year the aim is to work for an economy that does not favour, even indirectly, this ignoble trafficking, that is, an economy that never makes men and women commodities, objects, but always the aim,” he said.