At least 8,750 new migrants entered Croatia in a single day this week, according to a statement released Wednesday by the country’s Interior Ministry.
That number, reported to have entered the Balkan country Tuesday, brings the total number of migrants having entered Croatia to 44,000, the ministry said, without specifying the time period involved.
The statement comes as European Union officials are struggling to come up with a coherent response to the crisis — the largest migration the continent has seen since the end of World War II.
European Union interior ministers voted Tuesday in favor of a quota system to relocate 120,000 asylum seekers in Europe, an EU source told CNN’s Nic Robertson.
Hungary gives army new powers to tackle crisis
Now the plan goes to EU presidents and prime ministers, who are scheduled to meet in Brussels, Belgium, on Wednesday to consider it.
But the plan would seem to fall short of what is needed. More than 430,000 migrants have come to Europe by sea so far this year, double the number that arrived during all of 2014, according to the International Organization for Migration.
And individual European countries are taking their own measures. The Hungarian parliament passed a law Monday giving the army new powers to tackle the migrant crisis.
“Under the new law, soldiers will have the authority to detain people, search clothing, baggage or cars, perform traffic checks or apply coercion if necessary,” the Hungarian government’s International Communications Office said.