Amid chaotic scenes at its border with Serbia, Croatia said yesterday it could not cope with a flood of migrants seeking a new route into the EU after Hungary kept them out by erecting a fence and using tear gas and water cannon against them.
In fact, later yesterday Croatia’s Interior Minister Ranko Ostojic said his country will close its border with Serbia if another 8,000 migrants enter the newest European Union member in one day.
“Croatia will close its border with Serbia if we witness again 8,000 migrants entering the country in one day,” he said. He insisted there was no need for migrants to continue arriving to seek protection as Croatia had no capacity to receive them.
Some 9,000 migrants entered Croatia since early Wednesday following the closure of Hungary’s border with Serbia.
Meanwhile the European Union called an emergency summit next week to try to overcome disarray over the refugee crisis, as its newest member state said it may have to use the army to stop illegal migrants criss-crossing the Western Balkans in their quest for sanctuary in the wealthy 28-nation bloc.
Migrants are mostly fleeing war and poverty in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and Pakistan
The EU is split over how to handle the influx of hundreds of thousands of people mostly fleeing war and poverty in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Wednesday was characterised with clashes between Hungarian riot police and stone-throwing refugees at its Balkan neighbour’s frontier. Hungary’s closure of its southern EU border with Serbia has now shifted pressure onto Croatia, Slovenia and Romania.
Yesterday at the eastern border town of Tovarnik, Croatian riot police struggled to keep crowds of men, women and children back from rail tracks after long queues formed for buses bound for reception centres elsewhere in Croatia. Scuffles broke out as police tried to get women and children to board the buses bound for reception centres near Zagreb. Women screamed and children cried in desperate scenes.
An Iraqi from Baghdad who gave his name as Riad said he had been separated from his wife and child. “Only women and children are now allowed onto buses. My wife and child are gone and the police do not allow me to join them. My phone does not work.”
Groups of migrants broke away from the police and set off on foot down railway lines and through fields.
“They want to take us to the camps, but we don’t want that,” said one man as he set off.
Croatia’s President met the army chief of staff and asked the military to be ready, if necessary, to protect national borders from illegal migration, state news agency Hina reported.
Police also took up position in a suburb of Zagreb around a hotel housing hundreds of migrants, some of them on balconies shouting “Freedom! Freedom!”. Others threw rolls of toilet paper from the balconies and windows.
“Croatia will not be able to receive more people,” Interior Minister Ranko Ostojic said.
“When we said corridors are prepared for migrants, we meant a corridor from Tovarnik to Zagreb,” he added, suggesting Croatia would not simply let migrants head north to Slovenia, which is part of the EU’s Schengen zone of border-free travel. European Council President Donald Tusk summoned EU leaders to a summit next Wednesday to discuss how to better manage external EU borders. He had been urged to do so by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, leader of the EU’s most powerful member state and the desired destination for many of the refugees.
Ex-communist Central European states opposed to compulsory quotas for taking in refugees are pressing for more action to prevent migrants crossing the Greek and Italian borders who do not qualify for refugee status.
Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto is saying that all those who side with rioting migrants, who pelted Hungarian police with rocks on Wednesday in clashes that injured 20 police, were encouraging more violence.
“It is bizarre and shocking how some members of international political life and the international press interpreted yesterday’s events,” he said. Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban, who has blamed Berlin for the wave of migrants after Merkel rolled out the welcome mat for Syrian refugees, said Muslims would end up outnumbering Christians in Europe if the policy continued.
“I am speaking about culture and the everyday principles of life, such as sexual habits, freedom of expression, equality between men and woman and all those kind of values which I call Christianity,” Orban said in an interview published in several European newspapers including The Times.
Undeterred by the problems faces by migrants at the gates of Europe, more have been arriving at the Greek port of Piraeus from Lesbos island, a short boat ride from Turkey.
“If you make it, the reward is great, the whole world will open up for you,” Yousef Hariri, a refugee from Syria, said at a refugee camp in Jordan.