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Croatia closes border crossings with Serbia over migrants: minister

Hungarian government spokesman Zoltan Kovacs said it showed “the Croatian system for handling migrants and refugees has collapsed, basically in one day”.

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Asked whether Croatia could redirect people toward Slovenia, Milanovic noted that “Hungary is three times closer”.

Aleksandar Vulin, Serbia’s social affairs minister, said Serbia will take Croatia to worldwide courts if the global border crossings remain closed, arguing that it should have been prepared for the influx.

He also said Slovenia would receive asylum requests, but not create a “corridor” for migrants to simply pass through the country into Austria.

Slovenian media had reported late on Thursday that a group of around 600 migrants had left a refugee camp near Zagreb and marched towards the Obrezje border crossing, some 20 kilometres (12.5 miles) to the west of the Croatian capital.

But the EU Migration Commissioner, Dimitris Avramopoulos, says he hopes the summit succeeds in convincing reluctant eastern European states to sign up to a quota system for the distribution of refugees.

Most of the refugees interviewed by local TV stations in the last few days expressed their desire to reach Austria and Germany, pointing out that they do not plan to stay in Croatia or Slovenia.

Migrants push through a police line in Tovarnik, Croatia on September 17.

Croatia had initially said the migrants would be welcome, but today it said it was overwhelmed and would not become a “migrant hotspot”.

(Vatican Radio) Thousands of Syrian and other refugees have been dumped by Croatian authorities near the Hungarian border. “If the number of migrants continues increasing, I’m not sure we will be able register them all“.

Between Croatia and Serbia, only the main Bajakovo crossing, on the highway between Belgrade and Zagreb, appeared to be open to traffic on Friday.

The refugees were shocked and devastated to find out where they were.

Serbian officials, fearing the closure in Croatia would block thousands of migrants inside the country, protested Zagreb’s move.

Hungary began building a fence on its border with Croatia overnight to stem a flow of migrants and has deployed hundreds of soldiers and police on the frontier, Prime Minister Viktor Orban told public radio on Friday.

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UNHCR says more than 442,440 people have crossed the Mediterranean Sea to Europe this year and 2,921 have died trying.

Croatia seeks to redirect migrants toward Hungary, Slovenia