Croatia overwhelmed by flood of refugees, European Union calls summit

Amid chaotic scenes at its border with Serbia, Croatia said on Thursday it could not cope with a flood of refugees seeking a new route into the EU after Hungary kept them out by erecting a fence and using tear gas and water cannon against them.

The European Union called an emergency summit next week to try to overcome disarray over the refugee crisis, as its newest member state said it may have to use the army to stop illegal refugees criss-crossing the Western Balkans in their quest for sanctuary in the wealthy 28-nation bloc. The EU is split over how to handle the influx of hundreds of thousands of people mostly fleeing war and poverty in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

More than 7,300 people entered Croatia from Serbia in the 24 hours after Wednesday's clashes between Hungarian riot police and stone-throwing refugees at its Balkan neighbour's frontier. Hungary's closure of its southern EU border with Serbia has shifted pressure onto Croatia, Slovenia and Romania.

At the eastern border town of Tovarnik, Croatian riot police struggled to keep crowds of men, women and children back from rail tracks after long queues formed in baking heat for buses bound for reception centres elsewhere in Croatia. Scuffles broke out as police tried to get women and children to board the buses bound for reception centres near Zagreb. Women screamed and children cried in desperate scenes.

An Iraqi from Baghdad who gave his name as Riad said he had been separated from his wife and child. "Only women and children are now allowed onto buses. My wife and child are gone and they (police) do not allow me to join them. My phone does not work."

Groups of refugees broke away from the police and set off on foot down railway lines and through fields. "They want to take us to the camps, but we don't want that," said one man as he set off, without giving his name.

Croatia's president met the army chief of staff and asked the military to be ready, if necessary, to protect national borders from illegal migration, state news agency Hina reported.

Police also took up position in a suburb of the capital Zagreb around a hotel housing hundreds of refugees, some of them on balconies shouting "Freedom! Freedom!". Others threw rolls of toilet paper from the balconies and windows.

"Croatia will not be able to receive more people," Interior Minister Ranko Ostojic told reporters in Tovarnik. "When we said corridors are prepared (for refugees), we meant a corridor from Tovarnik to Zagreb," he added, suggesting Croatia would not simply let refugees head north to Slovenia, which is part of the EU's Schengen zone of border-free travel.

Deep divisions

European Council President Donald Tusk summoned EU leaders to a summit next Wednesday to discuss how to better manage external EU borders and help Turkey, through which many of the refugees are passing, as well as other states in the region that are housing Syrian refugees.

He had been urged to do so by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, leader of the EU's most powerful member state and the desired destination for many of the refugees. The bloc's interior ministers failed to agree on Monday on a mandatory quota system designed to spread the burden of this year's huge influx.

Ex-communist Central European states opposed to compulsory quotas for taking in refugees are pressing for more action to prevent refugees crossing the Greek and Italian borders who do not qualify for refugee status.

EU commissioner for migration Dimitris Avromopoulos rebuked Hungary over its tough actions, telling a joint news conference with Hungary's foreign and interior ministers that most of those arriving in Europe were Syrians "in need of our help". "There is no wall you would not climb, no sea you would not cross if you are fleeing violence and terror," he said, describing barriers of the kind Hungary has erected as temporary solutions that only diverted refugees, increasing tensions.

Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto hit back, saying that siding with rioting refugees, who pelted Hungarian police with rocks on Wednesday in clashes that injured 20 police, was encouraging more violence. "It is bizarre and shocking how some members of international political life and the international press interpreted yesterday's events," he said.

In Brussels, Johannes Hahn, the EU's commissioner in charge of enlargement, urged member states to stay calm and fight the crisis together. "The Western Balkans must not become a parking lot for refugees. That would be a grave geostrategic mistake. Cool heads on all sides are all needed now, not harsh rhetoric," he said.

More refugees coming 

Undeterred by the problems faces by refugees at the gates of Europe, more have been arriving at the Greek port of Piraeus from Lesbos island, a short boat ride from Turkey.

Others are waiting outside Europe to attempt the hazardous journey that has cost thousands of refugees their lives. "It would be very dangerous, but if you make it, the reward is great, the whole world will open up for you," Yousef Hariri, a refugee from Deraa in Syria, said at a refugee camp in Jordan.

Police said the number of refugees arriving in Germany more than doubled on Wednesday to 7,266. The head of the German Office for Migration and Refugees quit for personal reasons after being criticised for slow processing of applications from a record number of asylum seekers.

In Istanbul, hundreds of Syrians and other refugees thronged a small park in the city centre hoping for a last chance to reach Europe before poor weather makes their favoured Aegean Sea route to Greek islands too dangerous to undertake.

Greece said large groups of refugees from Syria may be about to try to cross its far northeastern land border with Turkey, a relatively new entry point. Much of the frontier is fenced. A record 300,000 people have fled to Europe via Greece this year, according to the Internaational Organisation of Migration. More than 116,000 more have arrived in Italy.

Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban, who has blamed Berlin for the wave of refugees after Merkel rolled out the welcome mat for Syrian refugees, said Muslims would end up outnumbering Christians in Europe if the policy continued. "I am speaking about culture and the everyday principles of life, such as sexual habits, freedom of expression, equality between men and woman and all those kind of values which I call Christianity," Orban said in an interview published in several European newspapers including The Times.

The UN human rights chief, Zeid Ra'ad al Hussein, denounced "callous, xenophobic and anti-Muslim views that appear to lie at the heart of current Hungarian government policy".

Two German ministers have spoken of cutting European funds to central European member states that refuse to take their allotted share of refugees.

The future of border-free travel in the Schengen zone of 26 continental European states has been cast in doubt by the uncoordinated national actions to revive frontier checks. "Europe was created to knock down walls, not to build them," Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said.