Migrant Crisis: Croatia Switches to Plan B

Croatia have ‘switched to Plan B’ to deal with the current migrant crisis in the country after more than 17,000 migrants entered Croatia on Thursday and Friday…

Croatian authorities transported migrants to the Hungarian border on Friday after Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic stated that the country could no longer accommodate the influx of people trying to make their way to Western Europe.

“Croatia cannot and will not take this burden any more, while others are looking away trying to pass the buck,” Milanovic told a press conference. “Refugees are welcome in Croatia, they can pass through because their destination is Northern Europe. They can no longer be registered and accommodated, and we are switching to Plan B,” said Milanovic.

When the migrants arrived on the Hungarian border they were then put on buses to registration centres at Szentgotthard and Vamosszabadi, near the Austrian border, daily Vecernji List reported.

The main migration route across the Balkans – from Turkey, across Greece, Macedonia and Serbia – previously led to Hungary. But after Hungary closed borders, migrants began taking an alternative route to Western Europe via Croatia. Milanovic stressed that Croatia will not become a ‘hot spot’ for the migrants and that the EU needed to do more to solve the problem.

A number of the migrants who arrived in Croatia yesterday had also already made their way to Croatia’s neighbour Slovenia.

Milanovic and German Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke on Friday at length, reportedly agreeing that the problem must be solved at the external borders of the European Union.

Nearly all migrants in Croatia want to continue west, most of all to apply for asylum in Germany, France and Sweden.