Refugees clash with police at Croatian Border

After waiting in the sun for hours, migrants clashed with the Croatian police at Tovarnik and Bezdan located along the Croatian border with Serbia, since Hungary closed the earlier land route to the European Union. According to officials, at least 9,200 refugees have entered into Syria, prompting Croatia’s interior minister to declare the country “absolutely full.”

European Union leaders are due to hold a meeting in the coming week to discuss the crisis at length. According to a Croatian state news agency Hina, the president of Croatia, Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović, asked the army to be prepared to protect the border from illegal migration. Officials have also revealed that refugees who do not register themselves would be considered as illegal immigrants.

Croatia’s Interior Minister Ranko Ostojic said that if another 8,000 refugees enter the country in one day it will be closing its border with Serbia. The refugees have started taking the Croatian border after Hungary sealed off its southern border with Serbia on Tuesday.

More than 100 riot police were deployed at the border to control the huge influx of refugees. They have been trying to keep the refugees off the railway tracks. Scuffles broke out when some of the migrants broke through the police lines.

“When we said corridors are prepared, we meant a corridor from Tovarnik to Zagreb,” Ostojić was quoted by The Guardian as saying. He added that Croatia would not allow the migrants to proceed to Slovenia.

Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, the United Nations Commissioner of Human Rights, criticised Hungary for its treatment towards refugees, describing it as callousness and a “clear violation of international law.”

“High commissioner Zeid deplored the xenophobic and anti-Muslim views that appear to lie at the heart of current Hungarian government policy,” a statement issued on his behalf said.

Scores of refugees were entering into Croatia from Serbia, by a connecting bridge in the town of Batina, after they were dispersed by buses the Serbs at its border with Hungary.

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