EU migrant mobs in running battles
Violence f lares on Croatian border
REFUGEES turned on each other and fought running battles yesterday as frustrations at the migrant crisis boiled over.
More than 100 men clashed on the Croat-Hungarian border after Syrians fleeing the country’s civil war accused migrants from Afghanistan and Pakistan of exploiting their misery.
They threw stones and fought in the Croatian town of Beli Manastir before police officers stormed in with batons.
As the crisis took a new twist, another 40,000 asylum seekers are expected to flood into Europe over the next two days.
The violence came as the EU’s official statistics agency revealed that only one in every five migrants claiming asylum in Europe is from Syria.
At the Croatian border town of Baranjsko Petrovo Selo, a Syrian businessman complained: ‘The Iraqis are throwing away their passports on the beach in Greece and saying they are Syrian. The Pakistanis, the Afghans… they are all Syrian now.’
It is a bitter and frequently repeated complaint from Syrian refugees along the route from Turkey to Europe.
Croatia said more than 20,000 migrants had entered the country since Wednesday – and it plans to ‘force’ Hungary to accept them.
In response, Hungary accused Croatia of ‘people smuggling’ after police ordered 10,000 migrants on to buses and escorted them directly to its border without registering them or taking any details.
Meanwhile, more than 2,000 people were taken west to Croatia’s border with Slovenia where riot police pepper-sprayed a group of 150 migrants in the early hours of yesterday.
In the tiny border town of Tovarnik, migrants claimed that police officers told them that for £20 they would be taken 200 miles west to the capital Zagreb so they could catch trains to more prosperous northern European nations.
Instead, the coaches were escorted by police to a border crossing with Hungary, which reluctantly agreed to put them on buses to Austria.
Dozens of migrants at the border patrol in Baranjsko Petrovo Selo in Croatia on Friday night showed their printed bus tickets which clearly stated Zagreb as the destination.
‘Why are we crossing into Hungary where they beat us?’ demanded Ahmed Laham, 18, who was fleeing war-torn Aleppo in Syria, with his brother and sister.
‘They charged us €25 each to get to Zagreb. Now we are at Hungary. What is going on?’
Lwae Maajid, 35, from the Iraqi city of Ramadi, stepped off one of the buses with his wife and four young children and said: ‘We want to get to Germany where I can get work and start a new life.’ The overwhelming majority of those at the border claimed to be from Syria, including Mr Maajid.
Another group of migrants, who minutes earlier told this newspaper they were from Pakistan and wanted to come to Britain, then claimed they were Syrian when challenged by police.
Meanwhile, more than 4,500 boat refugees trying to get to Italy were rescued off Libya yesterday. A British vessel was one of the rescue ships from at least five countries which picked up migrants from Syria, Eritrea, Somalia, Nigeria and other west African countries.
The Italian coastguard also said it co-ordinated the rescue of 1,000 migrants on Friday.