The latest from the migrant crisis in Croatia.
From midnight to 9 pm on Friday, 3,339 migrants entered Croatia. There were just 8 people accommodated at the temporary refugee centre in Slavonski Brod. Since the beginning of the migration crisis, 536,077 migrants and refugees have passed through Croatia. It is expected that the influx of refugees over the border with Serbia will continue, reports Vecernji List and Jutarnji List on December 26, 2015.
The number of refugees and immigrants who have arrived this year in the EU over land and sea has exceeded a million, while 3,600 of them have died or disappeared somewhere along the route, reported the UN Refugee Agency and the International Organization for Migration.
Greece and Italy reported yesterday that nearly 2,000 new migrants from Turkey and North Africa had arrived to those two countries during the day. About 1,700 migrants arrived in the Greek port of Piraeus from Turkey, via the islands of Lesbos, Chios and Samos, announced the Greek coast guard. This week, more than 12,000 migrants arrived in Piraeus.
The Italian Coast Guard announced that during the night it rescued 99 migrants from a small boat in the Mediterranean Sea near the Sicilian coast.
More than 800,000 migrants arrived over the Aegean Sea from Turkey to Greece this year and additional 150,000 from North Africa to Italy, announced on Thursday the UNHCR and the International Organization for Migration.
Although there are many unhappy stories concerning refugees, this Christmas season has brought a completely different kind of experience for one African refugee living in Spain. An unemployed Senegalese, who was rescued as a refugee by the Spanish coast guard from a small, crowded boat when he arrived from Morocco, won 400,000 euros on Spain’s annual Christmas lottery.
Ngame was one of 1,600 winners of the lottery. “I cannot believe it! There are days when my wife and I do not have even five euros to spend”, Ngame said. He and his wife arrived on the Spanish island of Tenerife eight years ago. Since they came to Spain, they have occasionally worked as fruit and vegetables pickers, but Ngame was recently fired and has since been unsuccessfully looking for work.
The Christmas lottery in Spain is part of tradition when friends, colleagues and families gather together and try their luck. A standard lottery ticket costs 20 euros, and for a few days before the draw itself there are long lines of people waiting to buy their tickets.
