A dusty dirt road that cuts through the cornfields where northwest Serbia meets Croatia has become the main entry into the European Union for refugees, with crossings in Hungary and elsewhere in Croatia sealed as the mass migration in the E.U. continues.
About 280 refugees crossed per hour on Friday from the Serbian town of Sid to Tovarnik in Croatia, most having come from Macedonia overnight. They were pointed directly to buses and taxis to the border area. “Is the border open?” a group of Afghans asked, before starting the mile-and-a-half trek to the frontier.
The answer may not stay the same for long. Croatia said late Thursday it would close its border with Serbia but instead seemed to only close its official crossings, allowing thousands of people to enter through these fields on Friday. Some 17,000 people had crossed into Croatia since it announced Wednesday it would open its borders, but after a U-turn the country’s future as a route into the E.U. is anything but certain.
“We have a heart but we also have a brain,” said Croatian Prime Minister Zoran Milanović at a press conference aired on the state-run HRT radio. He said the government could provide water, food and medical care, but could not register all the people.
It’s increasingly unclear who else might. Hungary, which lies to Croatia’s east, sealed its border with Serbia on Sept. 14 using a 13-ft. fence lined with razor wire and declared a state of emergency in the border counties. On Thursday, Hungarian police fired tear gas and water cannons into a crowd on the Serbian side of the border, as people threw rocks and chanted “open, open, open,” demanding in vain to be let in.
Word has spread quickly on the road. “Hungary is no good,” said a man from Iraq heading down the dirt road toward the border, when asked why he chose to come to this border with Croatia. “All the people are taking this way,” added Hala Kandalaft from Suwayda, Syria who is traveling with her three children. “My husband stayed in Syria. He’s afraid of the sea.”
These Photos Show the Massive Scale of Europe’s Migrant Crisis
Syrian and Afghan refugees warm themselves and dry their clothes around a fire after arriving on a dinghy from the Turkish coast to the northeastern Greek island of Lesbos, early on Oct. 7, 2015. Muhammed Muheisen—APA migrant who recently arrived across the Mediterranean Sea from Turkey, watching a ferry in the port of Mytilene, Lesbos island, Greece, on Oct. 5, 2015.Zoltan Balogh—EPAAn Afghan wades to the shore after arriving in an overloaded rubber dinghy on the coast near Skala Sikaminias, Lesbos island, Greece, Oct. 1, 2015. Filip Singer—EPASyrian refugees are covered with life blankets upon arriving to the Greek island of Lesbos, after crossing the Aegean sea from Turkey, on Sept. 28, 2015. Aris Messinis—AFP/Getty ImagesMigrants and refugees arrive on Sykamia beach, west of the port of Mytilene, on the Greek island of Lesbos after crossing the Aegean sea from Turkey, on Sept. 22, 2015. Iakovos Hatzistavrou—AFP/Getty ImagesMigrants and refugees board a train by climbing through the windows as they try to avoid a police barrier at the station in Tovarnik, Croatia, on Sept. 20, 2015. Manu Brabo—APA Syrian refugee boy cries while he and his family try to board a train at the station in Tovarnik, Croatia, on Sept. 20, 2015.Manu Brabo—APA migrant holds his child during a clash with Hungarian riot police at the Horgos border crossing in Serbia, on Sept. 16, 2015.Sergey Ponomarev—The New York Times/ReduxMigrants sleep on a highway in front of a barrier at the border with Hungary near the village of Horgos, Serbia, on Sept. 16, 2015. Marko Djurica—ReutersA wagon equipped with razor wire is placed at the border between Hungary and Serbia in Roszke, some 10 miles southeast from Budapest, Hungary, Sept. 14, 2015, to close the gap of the temporary border fence at the Horgos-Szeged railway line. Balazs Mohai—EPAA refugee reacts from exhaustion while swimming towards the shore after a dinghy carrying Syrian and Afghan refugees before reaching the Greek island of Lesbos, on Sept. 13, 2015. Alkis Konstantinidis—ReutersSyrian people sleep inside a greenhouse at a makeshift camp for asylum seekers near Roszke, southern Hungary, on Sept. 13, 2015. Muhammed Muheisen—APSyrian refugee Raed Alabdou, 24, holds his one-month old daughter Roa'a, while he and his wife hide in a field not to be seen by Hungarian policemen, after they crossed the Serbian-Hungarian border near Roszke, southern Hungary, on Sept. 11, 2015. Muhammed Muheisen—APMigrants and refugees beg Macedonian police to allow passage to cross the border from Greece into Macedonia during a rainstorm, near the Greek village of Idomeni, on Sept. 10, 2015. Yannis Behrakis—ReutersMigrants run over a motorway from a collection point that had been set up to transport people to camps in Morahalom, Hungary, on Sept. 9, 2015.Dan Kitwood—Getty ImagesA young Syrian man from Damascus tries to evade the Hungarian police by sneaking through a forest close to the Serbian border in Morahalom, Hungary, on Sept. 8, 2015. Dan Kitwood—Getty ImagesMigrants cross into Hungary as they walk over railroad tracks at the Serbian border with Hungary in Horgas, Serbia, on Sept. 7, 2015.Dan Kitwood— Getty ImagesA refugee from Syria prays after arriving on the shores of the Greek island of Lesbos aboard an inflatable dinghy across the Aegean Sea from Turkey, on Sept. 7, 2015. Angelos Tzortzinis—AFP/Getty ImagesA migrant scrambles to climb back aboard a rubber dinghy full of his fellow Syrians as they try to cross from Turkey to the Greek islands on their way to claim asylum in the European Union, late on Sept. 6, 2015.Yuri Kozyrev—NOOR for TIMEA Syrian migrant aboard a flimsy rubber motorboat hands his one-month-old baby to Greek coast guards, who have arrived to rescue the boat full of migrants from dangerous waters near the border between Greece and Turkey, early on Sept. 7, 2015.Yuri Kozyrev—NOOR for TIMEA young Syrian boy is wrapped with a thermal blanket as he arrives with others at the coast on a dinghy after crossing from Turkey, at the island of Lesbos, Greece, on Sept. 7, 2015.Petros Giannakouris—APRefugees and migrants wait to cross the border from the northern Greek village of Idomeni to southern Macedonia, on Sept. 7, 2015. Giannis Papanikos—APMigrants walk along rail tracks as they arrive to a collection point in the village of Roszke, Hungary, on Sept. 6, 2015.Marko Djurica—ReutersMigrant families ride a train from Gevgelija to the Serbian border in Macedonia, on Sept. 4, 2015.Dan Kitwood—Getty ImagesMigrants crowd the bridge of the Norwegian Siem Pilot ship sailing along the Mediterranean sea, on Sept. 2, 2015. Gregorio Borgia—APA Turkish gendarme carries the body of Alan Kurdi, 3, who drowned along with his brother Galip, 5, and their mother, in a failed attempt to sail to the Greek island of Kos, in the coastal town of Bodrum, Turkey, on Sept. 2, 2015.ReutersDozens of refugee families, mostly from Syria, camped near the Keleti train station in Budapest, Hungary on Sept. 2, 2015.Yuri Kozyrev—NOOR for TIMEA Syrian migrant bids farewell to the Hungarian volunteers who welcomed him upon his arrival in the European Union in Szeged, Hungary on Aug. 30, 2015.Yuri Kozyrev—NOOR for TIMEA father of a migrants family is arrested by the local police near the village of Roszke on the Hungarian-Serbian border on Aug. 28, 2015.Attila Kisbender—AFP/Getty ImagesSyrian migrants cross under a fence as they enter Hungary at the border with Serbia, near Roszke, on Aug. 27, 2015. Bernadett Szabo—ReutersHungarian soldiers install a wire fence at the border between Hungary and Serbia near Hercegszanto, 115 miles southeast from Budapest, on Aug. 25, 2015. Tamas Soki—EPAA little girl from Syria looks out of a bus as the ferry she arrived in is reflected in the bus window at the port of Piraeus, Greece, on Aug. 25, 2015. Petros Giannakouris—APChildren cry as migrants waiting on the Greek side of the border break through a cordon of Macedonian special police forces to cross into Macedonia, near the southern city of Gevgelija, The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia on Aug. 21, 2015.Georgi Licovski—EPAGendarmerie attempt to prevent people from entering the Eurotunnel terminal in Coquelles, Calais, France on July 30, 2015.Rob Stothard—Getty ImagesLife vests and a deflated dinghy are seen on a beach on the Greek island of Kos, following the arrival of Afghan immigrants, on May 30, 2015.Yannis Behrakis—Reuters
The Kandalaft family landed in Greece a week ago and heard the border with Hungary would soon close and that there was a new route through Croatia. Like almost everyone taking this path, Kandalaft says she is going to head through Slovenia and Austria to Germany, which has become a magnet for refugees after pledging in August to take in all Syrian asylum seekers.
But many migrants entering Croatia don’t make it to Slovenia, which is part of the Schengen border-free zone that covers most of Western Europe. Instead, thousands are being taken to the eastern Croatian town of Beli Manastir to cross the border to Hungary. On Friday alone, some 3,000 refugees crossed into Hungary from Croatia, according a statement from the Croatian foreign ministry.
Hungary’s foreign minister Peter Szijjarto has accused Croatia of pushing migrants to illegally enter Hungary by allowing them to be dropped off by the Hungarian border. “Rather than respecting the laws in place in the E.U., they are encouraging the masses to break the law, because illegally crossing a border is breaking the law,” said Szijjarto after talks with his Serbian counterpart in Belgrade.
Croatia says it is already overwhelmed with refugees and is calling on both Hungary and Slovenia to open their borders. As refugees continue to pour into the Balkans from Greece, states inside the European Union and on its fringes are becoming ever more bitterly divided on how to deal with the crisis.
“We have seen openings and closures of borders all along during this emergency,” said Melita Šunjić a spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), standing at the drop point near the Sid-Tovarnik border crossing between Serbia and Croatia. “And this is why as the UNHCR we are calling for a European solution. No single country can solve the problem.”
