Tension was building among thousands of migrants as they remained stranded in fog and cold weather in the Balkans in their quest to reach a better life in Western Europe, a day after Hungary closed its border with Croatia and the flow of people was redirected to a much slower route via Slovenia.
Tiny Slovenia has said it will only take in 2,500 people a day, significantly stalling the movement of people as they fled their countries in the Middle East, Asia and Africa. On Saturday, more than 6,000 people reached Croatia, but most of them were stuck in the country as well as in neighboring Serbia yesterday -- and thousands kept on arriving.
On the Serbian-Croatian border, tensions flared and scuffles erupted as hundreds of irritated migrants faced a cordon of Croatian policemen preventing them from entry.
The Balkan migrant route switched to Slovenia early Saturday after Hungary's right-wing government closed its border to Croatia for the influx, citing security concerns and saying it wants to protect the European Union from an uncontrolled flow of people.
Slovenian officials said they can't accept 5,000 migrants per day as asked by Croatia, which is likely to cause a further backlog in the flow. Interior Ministry official Bostjan Sefic said Slovenia can't take more than neighboring Austria, which said it can accept 1,500 per day.
"If we would accept 5,000 migrants per day that would mean 35,000 would be in Slovenia in 10 days," Sefic said, taking into account those who leave for Austria. "That would be unacceptable."
Slovenia said yesteray it won't allow entry to about 1,800 migrants on a train from Croatia after more than 2,000 people have already entered in one day. Some 5,000 other migrants will have to spend a cold night in a camp in Opatovac, eastern Croatia, before they can head toward Slovenia, the next step on their journey toward richer EU states, such as Germany or Sweden.
Across the border in Serbia, thousands of people have been sitting in some 50 buses since early hours of yesterday waiting to cross to Croatia. More are expected to arrive during the day.
"We are waiting here 4 hours on the bus," said Muhammad Samin from Afghanistan. "The weather is too cold. We wear lots of shirts. The children are also in the cold. No food."
The United Nations refugee agency warned that Hungary's decision to close its border for migrants has increased their suffering and could lead to a backlog down the so-called Balkan route that goes from Turkey through Greece, Macedonia, Serbia and Croatia.
