Because Hungary has sealed off its border, the refugees seek other ways. New transit country is Croatia. There threatening legacies of war.
First come the taxis. Imagine close to the walls of houses in the shade and wait. In the early morning the first buses are in Šid Serbian refugees from Belgrade arrived. By evening, a total of800 by traveling here people. On those who still have money left over, hoping the taxis. The entire morning elapses, and the small town dawns at 33 degrees in front of him until Abu and his three friends to go into one of the waiting cars. "Croatia?" The driver nods.Here in Šid created this Wednesday one of the new centers for the refugees.
The famous photo from Macedonia, Serbia, Hungary, Vienna and Munich are formed now also in Croatia. Dehydrated people with small luggage, hoping for trains and must relearn from country to country, if the police awaits them with stun grenades or drinking water. Weary, do not know when to breathe and can feel safe when they have reached an intermediate homeland.
Despair, exhaustion and hope
Here, on the Serbian-Croatian border is the backdrop for despair, exhaustion and hope a cornfield. Abu engages in passing in the dried flask beside him an entourage Reporter. Refugees and journalists have entered into a symbiosis."Hello my friend", the popular speech has become. The "Friends" draw only times the Caps in the face, smiling shyly, mumbling "Hello". To the question "Where are you from?", Always the same answer: "Syria". Abu adds 24 years old, no last name, please, student, from Damascus, the road for two weeks, just arrived from Belgrade.
This cornfield scenes are a proof that little has changed in recent weeks. That there was panic decisions in all directions, but no common solution. Since Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has its barbed wire barricade finally closed, the refugees have to look for alternatives. One of the new ways for the tens of thousands who want out from Serbia and will no longer be admitted by Orbán, leads to Croatia. There they join the European Union, a country further, in Slovenia, the Schengen area. As it goes there, knowing neither the refugees nor the police, railway officials and helpers, they will encounter. It looks like you do not know the politicians in Germany, Austria or France.
Anything goes these days, piece by piece, and not always forward. For Abu follows on the bus a taxi, then the dirt road. The last four kilometers to the Croatian border, he wants to run, the corn along. Whether someone has given him to do? What he has experienced everything and suffered at the official border controls? He had just heard it was better, he says. Sometime you can see on the horizon the first police vans, all 400 meters a.
Water for refugees - and for the photo
The Croatian officials are in short-sleeved, blue shirts at the border and waving the refugees toward you. It takes less than four minutes, then sit Abu and his friends in one of the police cars. "Wait, wait," cries a policeman to his colleagues.He pauses briefly, until all journalists cameras are in position. Then again goes the latticed steel door of the car, and the policeman reaches the refugees a water bottle. Finally, the car drives into three kilometers away Tovarnik. There are more buses ready under an apple tree parked an ambulance, and after a short break to proceed to Zagreb.
For Croatia's capital, the refugees are not surprising. For weeks, there is speculation on which way the Hungarian fence can be circumvented in the future. Already in August, the Croatian Prime Minister Zoran Milanović had announced that the refugees would be welcome: "They came because they were persecuted, and because they are poor and want a better life, it is up to us to help them with all our strength.. "
Beyond friendly words has Croatia, which since 2013 is part of the EU, agreed to3000 to take refugees permanently. That would be almost three times as many as those proposed by EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker 1064. In the first half only had 720 people in Croatia asked for asylum, 40 applications were accepted, 21 people were offered state protection.
