Slovenia yesterday said it would deploy the army to guard its border and appealed for help from the EU as refugees and migrants streamed through the tiny country and many thousands more spent another cold night outdoors in the Balkans.
Attempts by Slovenia to ration the flow of people since Hungary sealed its border with Croatia at midnight on Friday last week have triggered a knock-on effect through the Balkans, with thousands held up at border crossings.
At least 12,100 refugees and migrants were currently in Serbia, the prime minister said yesterday, and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported at least 2,500 were stranded in no man’s land between Croatia and Serbia.
By late yesterday morning, 5,000 had entered Slovenia, after about 8,000 in total had crossed the border on Monday, the Slovenian Ministry of the Interior said.
As the smallest country on the Balkan migration route, Slovenia has “limited possibilities of border control and accommodating migrants,” the government said in an earlier statement.
“Therefore, Slovenia publicly calls upon the [EU] member states and the European institutions to actively engage in taking over this burden,” the government said.
It said it was “delusional” to expect small individual countries to handle the spiraling humanitarian crisis alone.
Astrid Coyne-Jensen, a program coordinator with the Danish People’s Aid humanitarian organization, said that its medical team treated about 150 people from late Monday until yesterday morning.
In the morning, hundreds of people bypassed a border checkpoint and police cordon, and walked straight into Croatia along a path between an orchard and a vineyard.
Croatian authorities said more than 2,000 people were sheltered in the Opatovac camp near the border. From there, buses were taking them to the nearest train station in Tovarnik or straight to the Slovenian border.
In related news, more than 500,000 refugees and migrants have arrived by sea in Greece this year and the rate of arrivals is rising, with more than 8,000 arriving on Monday alone, in a rush to beat the onset of winter, the UN said yesterday.
UNHCR spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said that 27,500 refugees and migrants remained in transit on Greek islands near Turkey, from which hundreds of thousands of refugees have traveled.
“We have reached another dramatic milestone, with the arrival yesterday [Monday] of 8,000 people, bringing the total to 502,000. Obviously we knew this was coming, but we do see a spike in arrivals in Greece,” Fleming told a news briefing in Geneva. “It is of utmost importance here, as in other parts of Europe, that reception conditions be adequate to the task. Without this essential element, the relocation program agreed by Europe in September is in serious peril and may fail.”
Additional reporting by AFP
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