Huge numbers of people have been heading towards western Europe for weeks now, along an artery that runs from Turkey and Greece towards Germany via Macedonia, Serbia and Hungary. Now this human river risks breaking up into small streams, after Hungary closed the border to Serbia, and Croatia did likewise.
This was not supposed to happen. Historic rivalry with neighbouring Serbia – aside from any other humanitarian impulse – dictated that Croatia would not wish to behave any less hospitably to incomers than Belgrade has done; the columns of people have been moving through Serbia without much problem for two months.
Nor did Croatia’s authorities passively observe the Hungarian border fence going up. They knew that, if Hungary closed the route running north from Serbia, a new channel would open up to the west through Croatia, Slovenia and Austria. That is why prime minister Zoran Milanovic rushed to meet Austrian chancellor Werner Faymann to plot a joint strategy on Wednesday.
Milanovic also insisted that Croatia - unlike Hungary - would place no obstacle in the path of people wishing to cross the country on their way to Germany. Plans were in place to receive 5,000 people at a time. The idea was to transport them from the border to reception centres in New Zagreb, at Jezevo just east of Zagreb, to Kutina, further east, to Sisak in the sout,h and to a fourth centre in Eastern Slavonia, near the Serbian frontier.
Those carefully laid plans now lie in ruins. Overwhelmed by the crowds pushing up against police lines near the Tovarnik crossing, the police lost control, thousands poured past them, and on Thursday night Croatia removed the welcome mat. Seven of the eight border crossings are closed.
The attempt to dam this river of people will not result in the formation of a human reservoir for long. Several thousand people trapped in northern Serbia, on the other side of the Croatian border, have already walked across into the fields of eastern Croatia, apparently determined to get to Slovenia on foot.
Smaller channels are also in the process of forming. Bosnia-Herzegovina’s authorities say they expect traffickers to open up new routes through the country, possibly via Zvornik. If they succeed, migrants will attempt to cross Bosnia towards western Croatia, from where Slovenia is only a short distance away.
As Croatia, and potentially Bosnia, grapple with the new phenomenon of large numbers of people moving unaccompanied and unregistered through their countries, time is running short.
Macedonia, which lies at the other end of the human chain, has warned that it expects another major surge of arrivals from Greece any day. Crossing Macedonia takes hours, and crossing Serbia takes no more than two days. Things will get much worse than they are already if the newcomers who have just reached Croatia have not moved on by the time the next wave breaks.
But move where? There is no established route to Germany from Croatia, just an assumption that they will all head out from the west across the Bregana border crossing with Slovenia and proceed from there.
But Slovenia’s attitude to these developments remains hard to read. Relations between Slovenia and Croatia are tetchy, and the Slovenian authorities have sent conflicting statements. After Croatia initially said it would allow free passage to anyone crossing its territory, Slovenia said that opening up a “safe corridor” in Slovenia was out of the question. On Thursday a shift took place, when their ambassador to Britain said Slovenia would not stop people from crossing the country to other parts of Europe.
On Friday the Slovenes let in the first few hundred arrivals from Croatia – but it remains unclear whether Slovenia is willing to become a new link in the chain of countries used by people travelling from Turkey to Germany.
The danger of a pile-up therefore remains. Most of the thousands of people now in Croatia have not even reached the Slovenian border. Whether their new route to Germany “works” is something they are about to find out.
