Croatia’s border policy in the migrant crisis will mirror Germany’s.
“On Monday, Austrians did not close the border, but only temporarily stopped accepting refugees”, Croatian Interior Minister Ranko Ostojić said yesterday. According to him, Slovenia officially notified Croatia that Austria will stop receiving migrants at 4 pm, and that Slovenia will do the same. However, at about 11 pm, the normal flow of refugees was restored. “The decision was not announced in time and has not been sufficiently explained. In the future, things like that could lead to disorder”, Ostojić said, reports Vecernji List and Jutarnji List on November 18 2015.
Answering a question about the announcement of Macedonia that it could build its own border fence, Ostojić responded that he was not sure how much it would help Macedonia and that a bigger problem was the lack of communication between Macedonia and Greece.
He once again noted that everything depends on Germany, and that, in the event that Germany closes its borders, Croatia would no longer be able to accept migrants. “We do not see wires as a solution, but Croatia will not allow to accept tens of thousands of people who would then be waiting for entry into the EU. Of course, we would have to react if Germany were to close its borders”, Ostojić said.
From midnight to 6 pm on Tuesday, 4,742 migrants entered Croatia. There were 2,667 people accommodated in the transit centre in Slavonski Brod. Since the beginning of the migrant crisis, 408,108 migrants and refugees have entered Croatia.
State Secretary at the Slovenian Ministry of the Interior Bostjan Šefic again denied information that Austria and Slovenia will close their borders for refugees. “All activities are taking place normally, we have just asked Croatia to delay sending one train to Dobova for a couple of hours”, he said, adding that this happened because there were too many people in Slovenian reception centres. Slovenia has not stopped receiving migrants, but has tightened controls to slow down their arrival.
In addition, he assessed that the Slovenian police strike scheduled for Wednesday will not too negatively affect the control of the migrant wave. Despite the strike, under the law police officers must fulfil all emergency and safety-related tasks. “I believe that the union wants to draw attention to the situation in the police, and that it will not affect the security of the state and regulation of refugee flows.”
“We must not let what happened in Paris be used to encourage fear, xenophobia and intolerance towards Muslims”, said Jody Williams, Nobel Peace Prize winner and vice-president of the Nobel Women’s Initiative, during a visit to the refugee centre in Slavonski Brod yesterday. According to her, if we do not help in the humanitarian crisis, we will all be responsible for continuing the suffering of innocent people and deepening the divisions that stir up war in Syria.
Together with Tawakkol Karman and Shirin Ebadi, she is a part of the delegation of three Nobel laureates who these days travel through Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia in order to assess the impact of the refugee crisis on women and to support humanitarian organizations and civic groups responding to the urgent needs of refugees. Nobel prize winners have presented the results of research conducted through interviews and meetings with hundreds of humanitarian organizations, groups and individual human rights experts.
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