The body of a 10-year-old Turkish girl was recovered from the Dragonja River between Slovenia and Croatia on Saturday. She had been swept away while her family had been trying to cross the swollen river.
Croatian police divers found the body of a girl on Saturday, December 11, in the Dragonja River about 400 meters downstream from where her mother said her child had disappeared two days earlier.
The family had been trying to cross the border into Slovenia on Thursday when police in the northern Istria peninsula received an emergency call. At the scene they found the mother holding onto a tree trunk in the river and suffering from cold and shock. Her other two children were already on the Slovenian side.
A Croatian and a Slovenian police officer, along with a local resident, managed to put the woman on a ladder and pull her out, according to a police statement.
Death in the EU
The border between Croatia and Slovenia – both members of the European Union – is on a route used by many migrants trying to reach Western Europe.
On Slovenia's N1 News, Deputy Editor-in-Chief Suzana Lovec said: "This death is on your shoulders, Europe. On your shoulders, Slovenia."
There are thousands of migrants trapped in the Balkan states, unable to cross national borders to continue their journeys. Many are sleeping rough in cold winter weather.
Last week, the dead body of a 31-year-old migrant from Bangladesh who was thought to have died of hypothermia was found in the Dragonja valley, between the Dragonja and Sečovlje border crossings.
With AP