Migrants and refugees from Syria, Afghanistan and neighbouring countries have been arriving in large numbers aboard buses from Serbia since Wednesday morning, after Hungarian authorities closed the border with Serbia. Serbian authorities are redirecting them towards Croatia.
Migrants can be found in the areas of Tovarnik, Ilok and at the Batina border crossing. Some are the Tovarnik railway station, waiting to be transported to registration centres.
A train brought 800 migrants and refugees to the Jezevo Registration Centre just east of Zagreb early this morning.
Defence Minister Ante Kotromanovic on Wednesday adopted a decision to support state bodies in activities related to the arrival of migrants, the ministry said on Thursday. The ministry will supply five tents and 120 beds for migrants in eastern Croatia.
On Wednesday through Thursday morning, 70 buses and 180 taxis arrived near the eastern Croatian border town of Tovarnik with migrants who had crossed the Macedonian-Serbian border and gave up from taking the Hungarian route, Belgrade's electronic media reported.
After Hungarian police on Wednesday used rubber batons, water cannons and tear gas on refugees at the Horgos-Reske border crossing, buses with migrants who scrapped plans to enter the European Union at Horgos headed for the Croatian border crossing near Batina on Thursday morning.
During the night, Hungary put up more barbed wire and a mobile metal fence along its border with Serbia, but hundreds of refugees are still waiting in tents near Horgos, intent on entering Hungary. After the Hungarian police intervention yesterday, many were forced to return to a registration centre in Kanjiza, where they received medical treatment. Buses will likely take them to Bezdan on the Croatian border, but they say they "don't know if the buses will really take them to Croatia," if this route was safe and if they could make it to Germany.
There are no crowds at Tovarnik this morning and all refugees are crossing the border on foot and are met by the Croatian police and Red Cross, Serbian Radio-Television said. On the Serbian side of the border, they are met by humanitarian volunteers who give them water and food.