Thousands of refugees yesterday were stranded in heavy rain at the Serbia-Croatia frontier, with volunteers urgently calling for help from authorities after a sharp slowdown in border crossings.
A surge of 10,000 refugees and migrants crossed from Macedonia into Serbia overnight and headed for the Croatian border, where 3,000 had gathered by yesterday morning, said Mirjana Ivanovic Milenkovski, who works with the UN refugee agency in Serbia.
A reporter described scenes of chaos at the Berkasovo border, where people were sitting in the mud trying to light fires to stay warm and children walked barefoot, lacking proper clothing for the torrential rain and cold temperatures.
Photo: AP
“This is over our capacity. We urgently need Serbian authorities to react. There is no one from the authorities here. We need police, army, some tents, food,” said Jan Pinos, coordinating a team of Czech volunteers.
He said there was “increasing tension” and a large number of pregnant women and children, including a baby that nearly died overnight in the chaos and crowds.
“It’s a matter of time before this is out of control,” Pinos said.
Photo: AFP
Hundreds were seen setting off on foot through cornfields trying to find another way across the border, while more continued to arrive at the crossing point, walking or by taxi.
The human bottleneck came about on the western Balkan route as Slovenia allowed limited numbers to cross into its territory, causing delays further down the trail.
Croatia in turn sharply slowed down the flow of refugees from Serbia, allowing only 50 people across intermittently.
Slovenian authorities yesterday said that they had refused to let in more than 1,000 migrants arriving from Croatia after a daily quota had been reached.
“Croatia did not fulfil its agreements with Slovenia, but continued sending large number of migrants to the border. That is absolutely inappropriate,” said Slovenian Minister of the Interior Vesna Gyorkos Znidar, according to Slovenian news agency STA.
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