Traffic chaos at border
Panic mars Spanish Good Friday
ZAGREB, April 15, (AFP): Enhanced checks at the EU’s external borders, purportedly to halt suspected Islamic fighters from Iraq and Syria, led to long queues and traffic chaos Friday at Croatia’s border with Slovenia.
Especially high numbers of vehicles at the start of Easter’s long weekend saw angry passengers waiting for hours as cars stretched back several kilometres at the main Bregana border crossing, according to an AFP photographer.
Cars and buses were waiting up to five hours to leave Slovenia, in the passport-free Schengen area, and enter Croatia, according to the national motoring club (HAK).
Meanwhile passengers crossing from Croatia — part of the European Union but not Schengen — were stuck for more than three hours.
Croatia and Slovenia share 670 kms (420 miles) of a EU external border.
The two countries lie on the soBalkans route used by hundreds of thousands of migrants travelling to western and northern Europe which was shut in March last year.
The EU said the systematic checks at Schengen borders were designed to identify foreign fighters returning from Iraq and Syria. Traffic problems started only hours after the controls were introduced earlier this month.
The chaos frustrated many holidaymakers from Austria, Germany and Switzerland who spent hours in queues waiting to head to southern Europe for the Easter or spring holiday break.
Albania, Kosovo and Macedonia on Friday boosted security measures to prevent terror acts, notably at places of worship over Easter, officials said.
An outbreak of panic sparked by troublemakers caused mayhem in Seville’s nightime Good Friday processions, famed for their religious floats, hooded penitents and hordes of spectators, seriously injuring one person, Spanish authorities said Friday.
Emergency services said eight people were detained in connection with the incidents, sending people running in panic and leaving children in tears in different parts of the processions.
In a statement, the Cecop centre that oversees security during the processions in the southern Spanish city said those detained had variously “shouted”, used metallic objects to make loud noise or made “wild gesticulations” to create panic in the thousands-strong crowds.
An AFP photographer present said she heard what sounded like a stampede of galloping animals, and then a mass of people pushed towards her.
Standing on the Isabel II bridge that goes over Seville’s Guadalquivir River, she climbed onto a lamppost.
“There were children, women with prams,” she said, adding some people rushed down steps towards the river, falling over themselves in panic.
“The first thing people think is that there is a terrorist attack.”
An initial probe showed that there were three initial movements of panic, which sparked a “domino effect” in other parts of the city, Cecop said.
It added that the different incidents did not appear to be coordinated.
“These are isolated cases without any apparent connection that are similar to cases of vandalism and hooliganism,” it said.
Cecop said three of those arrested were “common delinquents”.
Some 17 people were taken to hospital for injuries and panic attacks, it said.
One of them was in intensive care in a serious condition, suffering from brain trauma.
A video posted on Spanish news site El Confidencial showed what looked like a post-panic scene, with people hanging onto bars on windows and the famed penitents, some of them with their hoods off, waiting anxiously as an onlooker on a balcony urged everyone to calm down.