Friday, September 18, 2015

Europe Croatia 'will move migrants on' - PM Milanovic


Migrants walk through Serbian fields towards border with Croatia - 18 SeptemberImage copyrightAP
Image captionMany migrants are walking through fields to bypass border crossings closed by Croatia
Migrants flooding into Croatia will be "moved on", PM Zoran Milanovic has warned, adding that his country cannot become a "migrant hotspot".
He said the country's borders would not be shut completely, but it had reached its limit.
His remarks came as Croatia closed seven of eight road crossings after a huge influx of migrants seeking onward passage towards northern Europe.
More than 14,000 have entered Croatia, with tensions high and many exhausted.
Huge numbers heading north through the Balkans have triggered an EU crisis.
Many are fleeing conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.
South-east Europe map
In other developments:
  • Czech police and military are to conduct a joint drill along the country's borders to enhance co-operation in "crisis situations"
  • A migrant thought to be Syrian is electrocuted at the entrance to the Eurotunnel in Calais
  • The International Organisation for Migration says 473,000 migrants have crossed the Mediterranean to Europe this year, including more than 180,000 Syrians
  • German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier says EU members reluctant to accept migrant quotas might have to be over-ruled with a majority vote at a summit on 23 September

Piers Scholfield, BBC News, at the Croatia-Slovenia border

Migrants cross into Slovenia
Refugees and migrants are making their way to the border in small groups. After arriving in Zagreb on trains and buses, they are catching taxis and some are walking towards the border, some 25km away.
We met one extended Syrian family - about 30 or so - who walked across a quiet pedestrian border crossing in the village of Bregana.
There were no police or other authorities in sight, they simply walked between two plant pots into Slovenia, waving and with smiles of relief on their faces.
Shortly afterwards a police vehicle followed the group - and there are helicopters overhead - but no sign that the border is in any way secure.
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Read more coverage of the migrant crisis

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Migrants were seen walking through cornfields as they sought to go around road border crossings between Serbia and Croatia that had been closed.
Many are being rounded up by Croatian police after they cross and are then sent to reception centres.
One centre near the border is said to be overwhelmed, with migrants camped at a petrol station and beside a road.
Croatian Red Cross spokeswoman Katarina Zoric told the BBC the situation there was "very difficult", with people exhausted and tensions running high.
Migrants wash at reception centre in Beli Manastir, near the Croatian-Serbian border - 18 SeptemberImage copyrightEPA
Image captionMany migrants were sent to a reception centre in Beli Manastir after crossing into Croatia
Migrants queue for coaches for registration centres in Tovarnik, Croatia - 18 September
Image captionMigrants in Tovarnik queue on Friday morning for coaches to take them to registration centres
Police officers look at migrants sitting on the windows of a train at the railway station, near the Slovenian-Croatian border in Dobova, Brezice, on September 17, 2015.Image copyrightAFP
Image captionSlovenian police stopped a train carrying migrants near the border with Croatia, in Dobova
There have been altercations between migrants, including reports of stone-throwing.
Others have been taken to the capital, Zagreb. The BBC's Christian Fraser there says buses are arriving from the south all the time but many people are trying to go on to Slovenia on foot.
One man from Homs in Syria called Hanny told the BBC that people were walking without sleep.
"There's no time. The rules change every day," he said.
Media captionChristian Fraser reports from a registration centre in Zagreb for migrants
Media captionCroatian Ambassador to UK, Ivan Grdesic: Closing borders "deflecting people to go somewhere else"
Croatian officials said every border crossing except the main road linking Belgrade and Zagreb - at Bajakovo - had been closed, along with the roads leading to them.
Local media reported severe congestion at the Bajakovo crossing, with a 6km (4 mile) queue of lorries back into Serbia.
Migrants who had travelled to Serbia via Macedonia and Greece began arriving in Croatia in large numbers after Hungary completed a fence along its southern border with Serbia earlier this week.
Hungarian police's decision to try and disperse people with tear gas and water cannon has been criticised by the United Nations' top human rights official.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Friday that Hungary had also started building a fence along part of its border with Croatia, after media reports that migrants were crossing it.
The crisis has challenged the Schengen agreement, with Germany, Austria and Slovakia all re-imposing checks on parts of their borders.
EU regulations dictate the refugees must register and claim asylum in the first member state they reach.
But many migrants and refugees wish to continue on to Germany and Austria, and do not wish to seek asylum in smaller, less well-off EU nations such as Hungary, Croatia and Slovenia.
Europe migration map
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