Almost Half a Million Migrants Pass Through Croatia

The latest on the migrant crisis in Croatia.

Although the influx of migrants to Croatia has been significantly reduced in the last ten days, yesterday and today they again began arriving in somewhat large numbers. From midnight to 9 am on Thursday, 2,076 migrants entered Croatia. There are 1,038 people accommodated at the temporary refugee centre in Slavonski Brod. Since the beginning of the migration crisis, 488,402 migrants and refugees have entered Croatia, reports Index.hr and Vecernji List on December 10, 2015.

“In the past two weeks, the refugees have been brought to the refugee camp in Slavonski Brod by buses from the railway station in Garčin. After registration and receiving food, clothing and medical care, they are returned to Garčin, and then they continue with their journey”, Kata Nujić, spokeswoman for the county police, said.

Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović, who is in official visit to Slovakia, spoke about the refugee crisis. She said that the Dublin Agreement, that regulates which member of the European Union is responsible for asylum seekers, effectively does not exist anymore.

Asked why Croatia is still not implementing the provisions of the Dublin Agreement, although Interior Minister Ranko Ostojić said that, if the number of migrants in Croatia remains about four thousand, there would be no problem in registering them according to the Dublin rules, the president reiterated the view that the solution is the protection of the Greek-Turkish border, and that Croatia is not the first country they enter.

“Before Croatia, they pass through several countries which are classified as safe countries, from Greece through Macedonia to Serbia, and I believe that all the formalities, including their registration, should be done in Greece”, the President said, adding that Croatia “of course, has to register all the people who enter it for reasons of national security”.

“The statement by Minister Ostojić was related to the assumption that Croatia would receive a total of 4,000 people, and we have received much, much, much more than that”, she said. “The question is whether the Dublin Agreement today is even valid – in my opinion, it is dead”, she concluded.

Macedonia started constructing another fence at the border with Greece, after the one at Gevgelija, in order to better control the migrant wave. “We shall construct the fence in the Medzitlija area”, said a unnamed Macedonian military source. “That part of the border is porous and we want to prevent illegal entries”, the source added, but did not specify how long the fence will be.

On Wednesday, Greece began taking away hundreds of economic migrants who have spent weeks at the Greek-Macedonian border blocking rail traffic. Some 1,200 people mainly from Pakistan, Morocco and Iran remained at the border after the countries on the Balkan route began to filter migrants and allow passage only to those fleeing from war zones. Police said they would be taken by buses to Athens and placed in refugee camps before they are returned to their countries.

 

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