Croatia has assumed the six-month rotating presidency of the EU Council -- for the first time. The youngest EU member state is having a chance to prove itself on the world stage amid serious allegations of migrant abuse at its borders.
More than 120,000 irregular migrants and refugees arrived in the EU this year, mostly by sea. Greece saw a dramatic increase in arrivals, while arrivals in Italy and Spain declined. We take a look at clandestine and irregular migration movements to Europe in 2019.
The UN Migration Agency, IOM (International Organization for Migration) announced on Wednesday, December 11 that the Vucjak camp in the Una Sana Canton in Bosnia is now officially closed. 750 migrants were relocated to two facilities near the capital Sarajevo. Teams are now cleaning the Vucjak area.
Bosnia-Herzegovina has begun to move migrants from an informal camp near the country's northern border with Croatia. The site in Vucjak fell into international disrepute for its squalid living conditions.
Doctors Without Borders (MSF) have warned that the conditions of migrants stuck on the border in Bosnia are worsening by the day. The organization says migrants there are forced to live in inhumane conditions and that they are reportedly subjected to violence by Croatian police when they try to cross the border.
Since July, Italian and Slovenian authorities have been patrolling the joint alpine border in an effort to stop migrants from crossing. InfoMigrants met with Slovenian police in the city of Koper, not far from the Italian city of Trieste, where dozens of migrants are arrested every week.
Croatian police on Friday fired on a group of migrants trying to irregularly reach neighboring Slovenia, local officials said. One man was critically injured. Thousands of migrants trying to reach western Europe are stuck in the Balkans.
As more and more refugees and migrants try to make it to Western Europe via the western Balkan route, and with winter approaching, the EU and NGOs have warned of a humanitarian crisis in the Vucjak migrant camp and similar facilities in Bosnia and Herzegovina near the border with Croatia. On Friday, hundreds of locals protested against the migrants' presence.
In EU member state Slovenia, paramilitaries say they are facing down a migrant 'threat' on the border with Croatia. Their patrols includes trying to catch migrants climbing over the border fence and signalling their presence to the police. The founder and group commander this year served time in jail for forming the vigilante group and urging the overthrow of state institutions.
The Vucjak migrant camp in Bosnia and Herzegovina is reportedly about to be shut down following sustained criticism of its dangerous living conditions. The European Council’s human rights chief welcomed the closure.
A Croatian migrant rights group has placed a sign saying ''Welcome to Croatia - Country of torture'' at the border between Croatia and Bosnia to protest against reported cases of violence against migrants at the hands of the authorities. The protest is also directed against Croatia joining the Schengen zone.
The Bosnian government claims none of the local communities in the country agreed to the construction of new migrant centers in their territories.