Migrants and refugees passing through Croatia set to hit six figures.
Deputy prime minister and interior minister Ranko Ostojić said in Opatovac that Croatia has so far received 97,367 migrants, and that the 100,000 mark could be reached by the end of the day or during the next night, reports Index.hr on October 2, 2015. In a statement to the media in front of the refugee reception centre in Opatovac, Ostojić said that there is currently a little less than two thousand people in the centre, and that they are all in transfer towards the trains which will take them to Hungary. He added that during the night the number of new refugees has increased, but there were no problems or incidents, and the whole process is functioning as it should.
Asked what the plan was if the refugees were to come to southern Croatia, the minister said that “Croatia has decided to open the doors to those who are in transit just in this area, and not anywhere else”. He said that the entrance points are at Bapska and Tovarnik, and that “all those who would try to go through the south will not pass, since there are enough police forces”.
Journalists wanted to known whether HDZ president Tomislav Karamarko, who has a pre-election rally in Vukovar, has perhaps announced that he would visit Opatovac. Ostojić replied he did not know whether Karamarko would come or not, but he repeated his call to him “to feed a bus of refugees”. “If he wants to come, there are no problems”, said Ostojić and added that things there are “absolutely under control”.
He reported that less than 200 refugees a day pass through the Horgoš border crossing between Hungary and Serbia, which confirms that the wave is directed toward Croatia. Ostojić announced that on October 6 the Opatovac reception centre will be visited by the EU commissioner for migration and home affairs Dimitris Avramopoulus, who will also visit Zagreb and talk with the Croatian officials.
Hopefully, Ostojić said, “we will have a unified position – that all this needs to be stopped in Greece, and that the first step is to stop ferries in Greece, and then to block the border between Greece and Turkey, without waiting for the bad winter weather to start”. He added that Croatia, as part of the EU, expects that most of the costs incurred in this situation to save lives will be covered by European funds.
