Exhausted, traumatized, dehumanized and beaten down by elements, migrants fleeing bombed out, shot up homelands thought they’d find refuge in Croatia.
At first it said it would allow migrants. Then on Thursday, Croatia closed seven of its border crossings with Serbia. Chaos erupted as thousands of people broke through police lines in the border town of Tovarnik.
Men plunged through openings in fences, and families handed children forward past officers. Police did not use force against them but tried to keep barriers in place.
In the first two days, 11,000 people had crossed into the country, but the U.N .Refugee Agency said Croatia is only prepared to handle 500 migrants a day.
“I think that too many refugees entered in an uncontrolled way on the first day,” said Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic.
”Yes, of course, Croatia showed a human face, but I stress that the safety of Croatian citizens and the stability of the state comes first.”
Razor wire and tear gas
The human stream kept coming into Europe on Friday from the southeast, from the direction of Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. From the direction of Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon, where overflowing refugee camps have decayed into misery and the World Food Program has progressively cut food rations for lack of funding.
Previously migrants had been allowed to take the easier path up through Serbia then through Hungary to Austria and Germany, the first choice of most for a new home.
But Hungary cut off their path with a razor wire fence over 100 kilometers long on its border with Serbia and fortified it with military and police, who turned water cannons and tear gas on migrants this week.
The masses of women, men and children diverted to Croatia.
For fear they could still make it to their country via Croatia, Hungary has started building a 41 kilometer fence down that border, too, Hungary’s International Communications Office said Saturday. It will be fortified with 600 soldiers.
And Hungary rebuked Croatia this week over its previous generosity. Budapest’s Minister of State Laszlo Szabo summoned Croatia’s ambassador on Thursday, and told him “that his country’s procedure is unacceptable.”
Rivers, mountains, landmines
The path to Austria via Croatia is more arduous, leading over rivers and mountains, and old battle lines of the Balkan wars in the 1990s, where leftover scattered landmines and other unexploded ordnance lurk beneath the brush.
The path also leads through another country, Slovenia, which, like Hungary, is an EU border frontier. And it seems resistant to letting migrants pass through.
Its Prime Minister Miro Cerar tweeted Thursday that his country is committed to protecting the EU’s external borders. And allowing migrants safe passage through the country would violate national and European law, the country’s interior ministry said.
And the next country in the chain to Germany, Austria, has reinstated border control measures on its border to Slovenia.
Germany’s tougher law?
Even if they make it to Germany, which had let in tens of thousands of migrants early on, they could encounter closed borders. And lawmakers there are working to make it easier to quickly deport those who don’t achieve refugee status, German public television broadcaster ARD has reported.
The bill also cuts the level of aid provided to refugees in Germany.
On Thursday, Germany’s minister for migration and refugees resigned. Manfred Schmidt had been criticized for the slow process of dealing with asylum application and creating a backlog.
At the end of last month, 276,617 applications still needed to be processed.
A huge crisis
Aid workers say Europe is facing its largest refugee and migrant crisis since World War II.
More than 430,000 migrants have come to Europe by sea so far this year, double the number that arrived during all of 2014, the International Organization for Migration said.
The EU is still trying to figure out how to distribute 160,000 migrants — and whether to set quotas for member countries to absorb them.
Eastern European countries in particular have shown resistance to committing to a quota.