Leaders in word war as migrants pour into EU
In rough seas, more refugees feared drowned in Greece
BELI MANASTIR/HARMICA, Croatia—Hungary and Croatia traded threats on Saturday as thousands of exhausted migrants poured over their borders, deepening the disarray in Europe over how to handle the tide of humanity.
More than 20,000 people, many of them refugees from the Syrian war, trekked into Croatia since Tuesday, when Hungary used a metal fence, tear gas and water cannon on its southern border with Serbia to bar their route into the European Union (EU).
EU leaders, deeply divided, are due to meet on Wednesday in a fresh attempt to agree on how and where to distribute 160,000 refugees among their countries.
Hungary, where the right-wing government of Viktor Orban vowed to defend “Christian Europe” against the mainly Muslim migrants, accused Croatia of “violating Hungary’s sovereignty” by sending buses and trains packed with migrants over their joint border. It warned it might block Zagreb’s accession to Europe’s zone of passport-free travel.
“Croatia’s government has continuously lied in the face of Hungarians, Croatians, of the EU and its citizens,” Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto told a news conference. “What kind of European solidarity is this?”
Croatian Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic said that, unlike Hungary, he would not use “brute force” to keep people out, nor would his government make them stay against their will. The buses and trains would keep running to Hungary, he said.
An estimated 3 million people have fled the war in Syria and many more are displaced inside their country. The refugees continue to feed the tide to western Europe. So far this year, 500,000 people have crossed the Mediterranean to Europe. Most of them were transported by boats from Turkey to Greece.
On Sunday, a boat with 46 refugees sunk in Greece and the coast guard said it was searching for 26 missing off the eastern Aegean island of Lesbos.
The day before, a girl believed to be five years old, died and 13 other migrants were feared drowned when their boat sank off the island of Lesbos.
The developments in Eastern Europe exacerbated the migrant situation in Austria where, on Saturday alone, up to 13,000 people entered the country, said the head of the Austrian Red Cross. The figure was not immediately confirmed by local police, who had said that they were readying for an influx of around 10,000 refugees and migrants.