Monday, October 19, 2015

Backlog of Migrants Swells in the Balkans, Tempers Fray

 

Reuters, 19/10 16:20 CET

By Aleksandar Vasovic and Marja Novak

BERKASOVO, Serbia/LJUBLJANA (Reuters) – The Balkans struggled with a growing backlog of migrants on Monday after Hungary sealed its southern border and Slovenia tried to impose a limit, leaving thousands stranded on cold, wet borders where tempers frayed.

Having declared it would accept only 2,500 per day, Slovenia said 5,000 had arrived from Croatia on Monday, with another 1,200 on their way by train.

“Croatia is ignoring our pleas, our plans,” Bostjan Sefic, state secretary at Slovenia’s interior ministry, told a news conference, saying the army would be called in to help if such a rate continued.

Attempts by Slovenia to ration the flow since Hungary sealed its border with Croatia at midnight on Friday has triggered a knock-on effect through the Balkans; Croatia began holding back new arrivals and Serbia said it may do the same on its border with Macedonia.

More than 10,000 were stranded in Serbia, the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) said, with more on the way but nowhere to go.

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Source: Euronews 

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