(VOVworld) - Sweden, Finland and Belgium will receive a combined 48 million euros (52 million USD) in emergency aid to help house and care for asylum seekers, the European Union announced Wednesday.

Emergency funding is intended to help with the costs of housing and feeding migrants. Image: Tommi Parkkinen / Yle

The funding will be used to address the immediate needs of asylum seekers, mainly for accommodation and provision of food. The funding also covers the implementation of national programs on migration, integration, and repatriation.
Belgium is granted 90 million euros to implement those programs by 2020. In 2015, the EU has granted a total of 222 million euros of emergency funding to its member states to deal with the migrant crisis.

The International Organization for Migration and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees said that more than 1 million migrants and refugees arrived to Europe in 2015 due to conflicts in Syria.