According to global media, officials said they had no choice after more than 10,000 people entered the country a day after Hungary fenced off its border with Serbia. Stay in refugee centers in Serbia and Macedonia and Greece.
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Croatian Interior Minister Ranko Ostojic pledged to “treat the refugees humanely”, and the government says it has set up a crisis team with the goal of coordinating humanitarian aid. The migrants would prefer the quicker route to Europe through Hungary, instead of taking the longer route through Slovenia. Pressure is building for a special European Union summit to come up with solutions to the crisis, with the bloc bitterly split and its vaunted passport-free Schengen zone in jeopardy, as Germany boosted controls along parts of its frontier with France.
Hundreds of migrants waiting a train station in Croatia have marched down the tracks in protest. Slovakia said extra officers would be sent to its border with Hungary and Austria, and Slovenia is now enforcing temporary border controls.
Austrian Prime Minister Werner Faymann was holding talks Thursday in Zagreb, the Croatia capital, and Ljubljana, the Slovenian capital.
The Balkan nation has suddenly become the latest hotspot in the 1,000-mile-plus exodus towards Western Europe after Hungary sealed off its border Tuesday with a razor-wire fence and then used tear gas, batons, and water cannons to keep migrants out.
A video published by the Guardian newspaper shows that missiles such as water bottles and stones were thrown at riot police by some of the migrants.
Two people have been seriously injured, while between 200 and 300 sought medical help during the unrest yesterday.
“The majority of people arriving in Europe are Syrians”, Avramopoulos said at a news conference alongside Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto in Budapest. “I believe we have a moral duty (to) offer them protection”.
Prime Minister Viktor Orban told public radio on Friday that hundreds of soldiers would be deployed to complete the project on the 21 mile stretch of border, where the two countries are not divided by a river. “It’s not acceptable”, Ban told a news conference in response to a question about the border clashes.
The Croatian Red Cross said it expects similar numbers to arrive over the next few days, state TV HRT reported, after buses drop them off near the border on the Serbian side.
Germany and France are in favour of the proposals – but Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia are among several European Union members which are strongly opposed. They’re turning west, toward Croatia. “But, go on. Not because we don’t like you but because this is not your final destination”.
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Migrants risked land mines left over from the 1990s war in former Yugoslavia as they crossed into Croatia’s Vukovar region.
