Croatia and Hungary have traded barbs on a national level, each pointing the finger at the other over their responses to Europe’s escalating migrant crisis, but on the ground, it is a different story.
Ministers from the neighboring governments have hit out at their counterparts, Hungary has built a barbed-wire barrier along much of its border with Croatia, while Zagreb has pledged to continue redirecting migrants — most of whom have taken perilous journeys from the Middle East and Africa — toward Hungary.
However, at the borders themselves, authorities on both sides appear to have cast aside the rhetoric and exhibited high levels of cooperation and coordination.
At an immigration point linking the northeastern Croatian town of Baranjsko Petrovo Selo with Beremend in Hungary on Saturday night, 11 buses transported about 600 migrants toward the frontier between the two nations.
One bus after another would stop just metres from the border, allowing passengers to disembark before progressing on foot into Hungary, where a phalanx of buses collected them and immediately departed.
The entire process took about 15 minutes per bus, according to a journalist at the scene.
“I have been traveling for 20 days,” said Aras, a native of Iraq’s vast desert province of Anbar, now largely under the control of the Islamic State group, formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
“It’s horrible. I am so tired,” Aras said.
“All the members of my family were killed — my sister, my mother, my father, all of them,” said the 21-year-old, his face thin and covered in stubble. “I am the only survivor. I just want to live my life. That’s all.”
Soon after, another bus came to a stop. The doors opened, and a pile of baggage spilled out onto the road.
Ammar, a young man with an athletic build who was wearing a white shirt with plaid shorts, jumped off.
“I am here with five members of my family, but our whole group is made up of 15 people, all Syrians,” the Damascene law student said. “We met onboard an inflatable boat between Turkey and Greece.”
“We are on our way to our destination, Germany, any city there,” he said.
The cooperation between Croatian and Hungarian authorities at the border were a marked contrast to the heated exchanges between the two sides in public.
Hungary hastily completed a 41km barbed-wire barrier along its border with Croatia, with the remaining 330km of the two nations’ frontier running roughly along the Drava River, which is difficult to cross.
Hungary’s minister of foreign affairs has accused Croatia of pushing migrants to break the law by “illegally” breaching Hungarian borders, while Budapest has dismissed Zagreb’s claims of a bilateral deal on the issue, describing them as “lies.”
Croatia has said it will nevertheless continue to redirect migrants to the Hungarian border, insisting it will “not become the refugee center of Europe.”
While waiting to enter Hungary at the Baranjsko Petrovo Selo-Beremend crossing, one young Syrian said: “We were a bit depressed when we learned Hungary had closed its borders, but right now, we are happy.”
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