Croatia moving migrants towards Hungary, says PM Milanovic

Migrants flooding into Croatia are being moved to the Hungary border, with PM Zoran Milanovic saying his country cannot become a “migrant hotspot”.

Up to 20 buses carried migrants to the border on Friday, although Hungary says it is building a new fence there.

Croatia earlier closed seven of eight road crossings to Serbia after 14,000 migrants entered over the past two days seeking passage to northern Europe.

Slovenia, another neighbour of Croatia, accused it of breaking EU rules.

The huge numbers heading north through the Balkans have triggered an EU crisis. Many are fleeing conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Migrant crisis: Latest updates

High tension

Mr Milanovic said: “Hungary has closed off its border with barbed wire, that’s not a solution, but these people remaining in Croatia is not a solution either.”

Asked whether Croatia could send migrants to Slovenia, he said that “Hungary is three times closer”.

The first buses carrying migrants arrived at the Hungarian border crossing of Beremend on Friday afternoon.

Up to 20 buses were offloaded and some of the migrants were then put on Hungarian buses and allowed to enter, although their destination was unclear.

There was a heavy Hungarian military presence on its side of the frontier.

Gavin Lee, BBC Europe reporter, Tovarnik, Croatia

There are 2,000 refugees and migrants here, in a long line in the middle of a road, that leads from Tovarnik train station into a village on the Croatian border with Serbia.

They’re being told to queue in lines of two by riot police dotted along the line at short intervals. Some of the migrants have been here for two days, waiting for buses to take them to registration centres elsewhere in the country.

But now there’s confusion over where they will go, after the Croatian PM said it cannot keep registering people. Slowly the word is spreading here that they will be moved further towards Slovenia and Hungary, even though those countries have closed the borders.

Paramedics here say many of those that are left are suffering heat exhaustion and that more than 100 people have collapsed with severe dehydration.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban had earlier said that Hungary had started building a fence along part of its border with Croatia.

It was Hungary’s completion of a razor-wire fence along its border with Serbia earlier this week that forced Serbia to move migrants towards Croatia.

Hungary’s new laws made attempts to cross its frontier illegal, and Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto on Friday accused Croatia of encouraging “masses of people to commit a criminal offence”.

Croatian officials said earlier that every border crossing with Serbia except the main road linking Belgrade and Zagreb – at Bajakovo – had been closed.

Local media reported severe congestion at the Bajakovo crossing, with a 6km (4 mile) queue of lorries back into Serbia.

BBC