“Police have contacted us and we sent a team to the border area in eastern Croatia”, an official at the Croatian Demining Centre told Reuters, asking not to be named.
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Hungarian policemen arrest a migrant at the border crossing into Hungary, near Horgos, Serbia, Wednesday, September 16, 2015. “We saw women, children, babies and elderly people being herded into an open field where they were kept for days without shelter exposed to the cold and rain”, said Kabir Miah, overseas manager at the charity, in a testimony.
While the tough new measures have mostly stopped the flow across the border, isolated groups still managed to crawl under or climb over the forbidding barbed wire of the 175-kilometer (110-miles) border fence to enter the European Union.
Hundreds of refugees and migrants stranded in Serbia on its border with Hungary faced a hard choice Wednesday: whether to wait in hope of Hungarian authorities letting them through or to find another route to the sanctuary they seek in Germany and Scandinavia.
Serbian media reported that at least 10 migrant buses had left for Sid from the southern Serbian town of Presevo, where several thousand enter every day from Macedonia, streaming north across the Balkan peninsula.
Where the refugees go from there is another matter of contention, with Germany pressuring the rest of Europe to take in their fair share as well.
There, the migrants received a far friendlier reception than the one in Hungary. Speaking to the M1 TV news channel, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said he had asked Belgrade to have the Serbian police take action to quell the disturbances.
While lauding German leadership in tackling Europe’s migrant crisis, the former British foreign secretary said that Hungary’s decision to erect a razor-wire fence to stop the influx of migrants was “misguided and short-sighted, and when it’s combined with bullyboy tactics it’s obviously appalling”.
Migrants stuck in Serbia briefly broke through Hungary’s barrier but were intercepted by riot police.
Croatia’s prime minister on Wednesday said he would allow free passage across his country for migrants seeking to travel onwards to northern European states.
Also in Hungary, an Iraqi man was found guilty under for “illegally crossing the border”, the first conviction under new laws meant to deter refugees from crossing into Hungary.
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Croatian police confirmed they had crossed, saying an unspecified number had been rounded up and would be registered and transported to reception centers near the capital, Zagreb.
