Croatia’s president has put the country’s army on standby as it struggles to cope with the arrival of thousands of migrants turned away by Hungary.
In the last two days about 9,000 migrants have entered eastern Croatia from Serbia, where they were blocked at its northern frontier by Hungarian riot police and a 175km fence.
Croatia’s prime minister, Zoran Milanovic, sharply criticised Hungary and said his country would remain open to migrants and assist them moving on to Slovenia, from where most hope to continue to Austria and Germany.
However, Croatian president Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic, an ally of a right-wing opposition party, took a tougher line after people surged past police at a border post and set off walking west across the country.
“Croatia’s president met the army chief of staff and required a higher level of alert and the army and to be ready, if need be, to protect the national borders from illegal migration,” the Croatian state news agency reported.
Freedom shouts
In Zagreb, the Croatian capital, police briefly surrounded a hotel housing hundreds of refugees, some of whom stood on balconies shouting “Freedom! Freedom!” and threw rolls of toilet paper from the windows.
With the main flow of the Balkan route now shifting west away from Hungary towards Croatia and Slovenia, it is not clear how either of these two former Yugoslav republics, now members of the European Union, will cope with the arrivals.
Some 6,000 Croatian police have been deployed to its borders to keep order during two weeks in which officials have said they expect more than 20,000 refugees to arrive – a figure that already looks like a major underestimate.
Croatia’s interior minister, Ranko Ostojic, said the country of 4.3 million would allow refugees to travel to reception centres around Zagreb, but that people not seeking asylum would be considered illegal immigrants.
Seeing busloads of refugees arrive at Tovarnik, on Croatia’s border with Serbia, Mr Ostojic announced: “Croatia will not be able to receive more people.”
Many migrants fear being taken to a camp to be registered and have fingerprints taken because they do not want to be returned to Croatia – or any other central or eastern European state – if they finally make it to western Europe.
From the border
Hundreds of the migrants now arriving in Croatia are coming by bus and taxi from the Serbia- Hungary border, where clashes between migrants and riot police on Wednesday resulted in scores of minor injuries and 29 arrests. Hungarian officials described one of the men detained as an “identified terrorist”.
Hungary’s neighbours have denounced the building of a fence, which prime minister Viktor Orban plans to extend along his state’s borders with Croatia and Romania.
International organisations have questioned the legality and morality of his crackdown.
Strong criticism came on Thursday from Zeid Ra’ad al Hussein, the United Nations human rights chief, who accused Hungary of “clear violations of international law” and “deplored the xenophobic and anti-Muslim views that appear to lie at the heart of current Hungarian government policy”.
However, Mr Orban’s chief of staff, Janos Lazar, remained defiant. As many migrants re-routed to Croatia, Mr Lazar said that the “assertive, uncompromising defence of the border has visibly held back human trafficking, and forces them to change direction. That was the aim of the entire action.”
Criticising critics
With the EU split over how to handle the crisis ahead of a hastily arranged summit of the bloc’s leaders next Wednesday, Hungary’s foreign minister, Peter Szijjarto, hit out on Thursday at his country’s many detractors.
“Aggressive people such as seen yesterday will never be let in,” he said. “Hungary will defend its borders no matter what outrageous criticism it gets from whomever in the international political elite.
“It is bizarre and shocking how some members of international political life and the international press interpreted yesterday’s events,” he added.
