Balkan officials clash over migrants

Associated Press

BELGRADE, Serbia

The war of words over Europe’s migrant crisis is turning vicious, with officials in the bickering Balkans trading blame and accusations of lying, while also disparaging each other’s actions as “pathetic” and a “disgrace.”

The plight over how to deal with thousands of asylum seekers is reviving old differences among Serbia, Croatia, Macedonia and Slovenia dating back to the 1990s breakup of Yugoslavia. It’s also creating some new tensions.

Though the 28-nation European Union remains deeply divided over how to share the burden of relocating the refugees and is convening a series of meetings this week to seek a resolution, the finger-pointing turned especially nasty in the Balkans.

Hungary’s decision Sept. 15 to close its border with Serbia has diverted the waves of people from the Middle East, Africa and Asia to Croatia.

At first, Croatia welcomed them, thinking they simply would go to Slovenia and continue on to Austria and Germany. But Slovenia shut its border, and Croatia quickly found itself overwhelmed with about 30,000 people in a matter of days.

Croatia then started putting the asylum-seekers on trains and buses, even as their furious leaders argued that they had been let down by their neighbors.

Even though Croatia set up a migrant reception center Monday in the eastern village of Opatovac to try to bring order to the unrelenting chaos and misery, it could hardly undo the damage.

And the high-level griping has strained relations.

When Croatia said it and Hungary had agreed to create a corridor for the migrants, the Hungarian Foreign Ministry called that a “pack of lies.” Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto called the Croatian prime minister’s handing of the crisis “pathetic.”