Croatia Deals With Thousands of Migrants Turned Away By Hungary
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Croatia closes seven of the eight road crossings after 11,000 people, who were turned away from Hungary, flooded into the country in a matter of days. The thousands of people, when first arriving at the Hungarian border, were denied entrance to Hungary, which has decided to shut itself off to migrants. After waiting at the border for hours, hundreds of migrants smashed their way through razor-wire fences and into Hungary after chaos at the country’s border saw them hurl rocks at riot police who hit back with tear gas and water cannon.
Refugees were locked in a standoff with about 400 Hungarian riot police, while Serbian police officers were deployed between the two groups in a bid to persuade the desperate migrants to back down. Three Hungarian military Humvees, mounted with guns, also arrived at the border. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban reinforced his view that by blocking the predominately Syrian and Afghan refugees, the border police are defending ‘Europe’s Christian culture’ from being overrun by Muslims.
As clashes continued at the border between Hungary and Serbia, some migrants turned towards Serbia’s border with Croatia instead. Croatian Foreign Minister Vesna Pusic said that the country was prepared for the arrival of migrants but could not cope if the numbers increased dramatically. ‘We are ready to (provide) asylum to a few thousand people and we can handle that, but we are not ready for tens of thousands,’ Pusic said.
Roads leading to the Croatian border crossing were closed and only one, linking Belgrade and Zagreb, was keft open. Eventually, around 4,000-5,000 migrants arrived at the border and attempted to board buses and trains to the Croatian capital Zagreb. Helmeted riot police tried to control growing crowds of refugees at the Croatian border town of Tovarnik, as thousands of migrants jostled to board buses after crossing into the country from neighbouring Serbia.
It is unclear where the migrants would go from Croatia, which borders Slovenia, Austria and Hungary, all of which are members of the passport-free Schengen zone, unlike Croatia.
