The latest from the migrant crisis in Croatia.
On Monday, 6,338 migrants entered Croatia over the Bapska and Tovarnik border crossings. Almost all of them have already been transported to the Hungarian border in buses and trains. From midnight to 9 am, 2,849 migrants entered Croatia. At 9 am, about 2,200 people were located at the temporary reception centre in Opatovac. It is expected that the influx of migrants from Serbia will continue. From the beginning of the migration crisis, Croatia has accepted 120,958 migrants, according to the Croatian Interior Ministry, reports Index.hr and Vecernji List on October 6, 2015.
The EU Commissioner for Migrations Dimitris Avramopoulos will visit Zagreb today. He and Croatian interior minister Ranko Ostojić will discuss plans of the European Union for solving the refugee crisis.
Ostojić yesterday reported that between five and six thousand refugees pass through Croatia every day. “It is something that no other country has experienced. We have managed to organize a humanitarian corridor through Croatia. Nothing bad has happened to anybody and that is the main success of this operation”, said Ostojić.
German Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière said yesterday in an interview with Stuttgarter Nachrichten that it was possible that some of the refugees who had arrived to Germany would be returned to Croatia or Slovenia.
Asked why has Germany accepted the refugees who could have legally been refused entry since they had arrived from a safe country, he explained that the states in general may return refugees to the first EU country which they entered. However, he said, the courts have in the past made decisions according to which refugees cannot be returned to Greece because they were badly treated there.
“It is very annoying, because a lot of money was sent to Greece in order to improve conditions for the reception of refugees. Similar court decisions exist for Hungary as well. With Croatia and Slovenia, the situation is different. Therefore, we must investigate whether it is possible to return the refugees in larger numbers there”, said de Maizière.
Germany has received a large number of refugees and migrants, and German chancellor Angela Merkel has openly invited them to come to the country. However, part of the German public is not satisfied with such a policy, which is why the chancellor has lost some of her support in the latest polls.
