Balkan Countries to Bar 'Economic' Migrants

Aleksandar Vulin, Serbia's minister for refugees, on Thursday said Serbia would no longer allow in "economic" migrants after Slovenia and Croatia announced they had barred such migrants from their countries.

"We need to protect our country, which is why we are applying these reciprocal measures against those who Croatia and Slovenia consider have no place in their countries," Vulin said.

Only refugees from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq will be treated as legal migrants, as they are from war-torn countries. Others will no longer be allowed to enter, as the countries they come from are not at war.

Croatia's Interior Minister, Ranko Ostojic, on Thursday confirmed that people from Morocco, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Algeria, Liberia, Congo, Sudan, Pakistan will be now treated as illegal migrants.

Ostojic said that he had "informed colleagues from Macedonia and Serbia that citizens of these countries will no longer be able to use this route".

He also said Croatia had refused to receive back from Slovenia 162 people from Morocco, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Liberia from Slovenia, because two countries lacked a prior agreement on the issue.

The Slovenian news agency, STA, on Thursday reported that Slovenia had also stopped allowing in "economic migrants".

It said Slovenian police would now check the national identities of refugees on international databases and decide who can continue their journey.

Macedonia, meanwhile, began erecting a wire fence near Gevgelija along the border with Greece to control the entry of refugees and migrants.

Construction of the fence started after Macedonia's Interior Ministry on Wednesday received an official statement from Slovenia saying it will no longer receive migrants from countries not...