Migrants inundate new EU crisis hotspot Croatia

Croatia closed most of its border with Serbia on Sept.17 as it became the latest hotspot in Europe's migrant crisis, with thousands of new arrivals overwhelming local authorities ahead of an emergency summit next week.

There were emotional scenes in eastern Croatia as local people came to hand out food to migrants finally departing after a long wait near the Serbian border, with more than 11,000 migrants having entered the country since early Wednesday, according to the interior ministry.
 
Hungary came under heavy criticism for its treatment of migrants at its own border with Serbia on Wednesday, when riot police fired tear gas and water cannon during several hours of clashes with rampaging migrants angry at being blocked from entering.
 
United Nations rights chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein said Hungarian government policy was apparently being guided by "xenophobic and anti-Muslim views", while Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic said: "This torture and non-European behaviour must stop."  

Hungary sealed off its border with Serbia this week, cutting off a key route into the European Union used this year by more than 200,000 migrants, many of them fleeing violence in the Middle East and Afghanistan.
 
That diverted many migrants to Croatia, which on Sept.17 responded to the influx by closing seven of its eight border crossings with Serbia.
 
Authorities in Zagreb had initially said they would let people pass through freely on their way to other EU countries, but Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic warned his country's resources for dealing with the influx were "limited".
 
"I neither want to nor can stop these people," Hina news agency quoted him as saying.
 
"If we can, we will register them;...