ZAGREB, August 31, 2019 – The driver, a 45-year-old Serbian national suspected of causing an accident in which a female migrant lost her life when he left his van while it was sinking, was on Saturday remanded in custody after he was arrested at the Bajakovo border crossing on late Friday.
The suspect was admitted to prison in Sisak, local police reported today.
The fugitive was apprehended in a bus at Bajakovo while he was trying to cross from Croatia into Serbia.
The suspect was driving the van transporting 11 illegal migrants through Croatia on 25 August and in his attempt to evade a police check point on the road near Sisak, he made the van swerve, which was why it fell into the nearby river. During the tragic accident, the driver jumped out of the vehicle, and left it sinking. While trying to rescue her children when the van ran into the river, the woman drowned. The other 10 migrants, who were rescued by the police, were admitted to the Sisak hospital.
Soon after the accident three men connected with smuggling those migrants were arrested when they tried to leave Croatia by bus. When the driver jumped out of the sinking van, he ran into the mine-infested field near the site of accident at the Slatina Pokupska village. The police search for the fugitive driver lasted six days.
All the migrants who were rescued from the sinking van have applied for asylum in Croatia.
A police investigation int the case is under way.
More news about migrant crisis can be found in the Politics section.
