EUROPE-MIGRANTS/CROATIA SERBIA BORDER Migrants wait to enter Croatia from Serbia as aid workers warn of bottleneck

Record ID: 135360

  • Title: EUROPE-MIGRANTS/CROATIA SERBIA BORDER Migrants wait to enter Croatia from Serbia as aid workers warn of bottleneck
  • Date: 18th October 2015
  • Summary: BERKASOVO, SERBIA (OCTOBER 18, 2015) (REUTERS) MIGRANTS WALKING PAST TENTS IN CAMP POLICEMEN STANDING INSIDE TENT MIGRANTS STANDING IN FRONT OF TENT BABY BEING HELD MIGRANTS STANDING IN FRONT OF TENT WOMAN LETTING CHILDREN TAKE BITE OF APPLE MIGRANTS WALKING PAST TENTS / SIGN READING (Serbian): "Republic of Serbia" VARIOUS OF MIGRANTS GATHERED BY TENTS MIGRANTS SITTING ON
  • Embargoed: 2nd November 2015 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Serbia
  • Country: Serbia
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVABHPSB462K1LQP7HKVCPM3MTCW
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Around 40 buses packed with migrants queued to enter Croatia from Serbia on Sunday (October 18), after their passage to western Europe was slowed by a new diversion through Slovenia as weather conditions began to deteriorate.
    Many of the migrants had spent the night on the buses, wrapped in warm clothes and blankets against the autumn cold. They awoke to dense fog.
    Others had set up camp in the town of Berkasovo on the Serbia-Croatia border.
    They explained what had driven them to make the long journey through western Europe.
    "It's like a big war. You know, army and the volunteers, they call it terrorism. But I am not [talking] about vocabulary exactly; I am talking about the situation. It is a bad war; you have guys with weapons, something like Daesh [IS] and something like revolutionaries and free army and the government's original army," said Amied, who had travelled from Damascus in Syria.
    The 18-year-old refugee explained that back in Syria he would be expected to join the army.
    "So all the guys escaped the country before this age. Why, because you should be in the army and should kill someone, and all of us hate killing," he said.
    A large proportion of the migrants have come from war-torn Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria.
    "I want a new life, relaxed life. I don't like waiting; I don't want something bad," said Mohamed, a refugee from Mosul in Iraq.
    Hungary sealed its southern border with Croatia to migrants at midnight on Friday (October 16), forcing them west to Slovenia, a small former Yugoslav republic of two million people that also borders Austria.
    Slovenia has said it will take in as many as it can register and accommodate, before the migrants continue on to Austria and Germany, the favoured destination of the vast majority.
    Slovenia said 3,000 had entered the country on Saturday and were sent to reception centres near the Austrian border.
    The government has indicated it would try to limit arrivals to around 2,500 per day, depending on how quickly they can cross into Austria. It would potentially create a backlog in Croatia and Serbia, which in recent weeks have seen upwards of 5,000 crossing their borders every day.
    Aid agencies had growing concerns about backlogs building in the Balkans, lashed by autumn winds and rain and with winter on its way.
    "What is very bad is that situation that they are very crowded, and they have been waiting here for many hours, and they are exhausted. They have not enough water and supply and also not enough information," said Jan Pinos, head of a Czech volunteer group.
    Croatia and Slovenia have both said they will not stop migrants from crossing, providing Austria and Germany also keep their doors open.
    "We have heard that the first refugees already got to Austria through Slovenia, so this new journey is ok. But the capacity of this new journey is not enough," Pinos added.
    The EU has agreed a plan, resisted by Hungary and several other ex-Communist members of the bloc, to share out 120,000 refugees among its members.
    That is only a small proportion of the 700,000 migrants expected to reach Europe's shores by boat and dinghy from North Africa and Turkey this year.
    The influx has exposed deep divisions within Europe, with Hungary's right-wing taking a hard line against mainly Muslim migrants who it says pose a threat to the prosperity, security and "Christian values" of the continent.
    The EU has proposed to give Turkey three billion euros ($3.4 billion) in aid, if it helps stem the flow across its territory.
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