For months, over 170,000 mainly Syrian refugees travelling north from Greece have used Hungary as a thoroughfare to the safety of northern and western Europe. But on Tuesday their path was finally blocked by Hungary, which finished fortifying a border fence, enacted new laws criminalising the act of crossing it, and began rejecting asylum applications from people who arrived at the border after midnight on Tuesday morning.
Faced with this new obstacle, refugees stuck in Serbia began to head westwards to the Croatian border, circumventing Europe’s collective attempt to use border closures to stop them. Much of the Serbo-Croatian border follows the path of the river Danube, so Syrians headed instead for the town of Sid, a Serbian border town a few kilometres from a region of Croatia that is accessible by land.
Ibrahim, a 26-year-old hairdresser from Hama in Syria, was turned back from the Hungarian border early on Wednesday. He was part of a large group taking a bus back to the Serbian capital of Belgrade with the intention of then making for Sid. Others said they would head to another Serbian town, Novi Sad, and then make for Sid. “There are lots of people thinking of going through Croatia or Romania,” said Ibrahim. “When you’re coming from a war, you’ll go by any route, any country.”
Migrants and refugees who make it to Croatia will be hoping to reach Slovenia, which is part of Europe’s Schengen zone of border-free travel, and beyond to Austria and Germany.
Croatia’s prime minister, Zoran Milanović, criticised Hungary’s decision to seal its border with Serbia and promised that Croatia would not do the same.
“We are ready to accept and direct those people,” he said, adding that migrants and asylum seekers “will be able to pass through Croatia and we are working intensively to enable that”.
Culled from the Guardian
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