ZAGREB, Croatia — The tens of thousands of asylum seekers making their way across Europe again faced rejection Friday, as Croatia tried to funnel them into Hungary and grim Slovenian border guards barred entrance into their country.
It was the latest upheaval for the men, women and children fleeing war and poverty after their path to the havens of Germany and Sweden was choked off this week when Hungary closed its borders. For days, the refugees have been forced to improvise routes across the Balkans as one country after another sought to shift responsibility.
The latest was Croatia, which staggered under the weight of the influx after initially opening its arms to the refugees. By Friday, the nation had taken in 15,400 asylum seekers and its prime minister was warning it could not take any more. He started shipping migrants by bus to Hungary — a provocative move, given that leaders there turned them back with tear gas and pepper spray earlier this week. Other asylum seekers made their own way to the porous border with Slovenia, where they were trying to sneak in through parks, fields and footpaths.
The chaos drew a warning from the U.N. refugee agency, which spoke of the human toll of bottlenecks in poor Balkan nations ill-prepared to handle the waves of desperate people.
Croatian Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic said his country could no longer accommodate refugees, although he said they were still welcome to pass through on their way to Northern Europe.
“Croatia has shown that it has a heart,” Milanovic said, “but we must remind our neighbors and the E.U. that we also have a brain, and that we know where our interests and our security lie.”
Croatia closed all but one of its border crossings with Serbia late Thursday, but thousands of people have continued to arrive. The restrictions raised risks that refugees could shift from roads to fields and forests, some of which are littered with land mines left over from the Balkan wars of the 1990s.
Increasing border controls across the Balkans, including plans for military reinforcements by Hungary, could bring huge humanitarian challenges, with asylum seekers stranded in makeshift camps farther down the migrants’ routes in Serbia and Macedonia.
[And more refugees come ashore in Greece]
“You aren’t going to solve these problems by closing borders,” said Adrian Edwards, a spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, noting concerns over a bottleneck in Serbia.
In recent days, each nation has been left largely on its own as E.U. leaders struggle to find a common strategy.
Hungary on Friday started to build a new razor-wire fence along its border with Croatia, adding to the 108-mile span along its Serbian frontier. The new effort, announced by Hungary’s anti-immigrant Prime Minister Viktor Orban, is an attempt to force back refugees who might try to bypass the fence facing Serbia. That border was sealed earlier this week and became the scene of clashes.
“There will be no dune, no molehill to hide behind for anyone to hope to enter the territory of Hungary illegally,” Orban told Hungarian state radio Friday.
He said the first stage of the 25-mile fence with Croatia would be completed within the day, and that 1,100 troops would be deployed along the border by day’s end. It was unclear whether Hungary would take further measures along its long border with Croatia.
When Croatia sent more than a dozen buses packed with asylum seekers to the border with Hungary, glowering Hungarian army officers eventually relented and allowed the people to cross the border. They were taken away by bus, possibly to migration processing camps.
[Hungarian mayor stokes xenophobic fears]
Czech authorities, meanwhile, said they were planning a military drill along the borders to test preparedness for a rush of migrants.
The stubborn response has infuriated the leaders of other nations that are shouldering far more of the burden.
Central and Eastern European countries have blocked E.U. attempts to spread asylum seekers throughout the continent. But Germany alone expects to take in 800,000 asylum seekers this year, and possibly up to 1 million.
The disparity has some German leaders suggesting that they force the wayward E.U. nations to take in refugees. Imposing requirements by majority rule, rather than by consensus, is an option under E.U. laws, but it has never before been used for an issue of such sensitivity.
“It cannot be that Germany, Austria, Sweden and Italy bear the burden alone. European solidarity does not work that way,” German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told Germany’s Passauer Neue Presse newspaper. “If all else fails, we should seriously consider applying the instrument of the majority decision.”
[Migration agency: Long-term policies needed]
Germany itself is mulling an option to slash benefits for migrants. The German measures would overhaul asylum codes to stem the massive flow of migrants into Europe, scaling back the generous policies that have made Germany a beacon for desperate war refugees and economic migrants pouring out of the Middle East, Africa and beyond.
In a 128-page draft law produced by the German Interior Ministry and obtained by The Washington Post, the government would speed asylum procedures, cut cash benefits, hasten deportations and punish those with false claims and phony paperwork.
The proposed German law would provide food and a ticket to return to the first E.U. Union country the asylum seeker entered — often Greece or Italy — instead of offering housing and cash benefits. That could mean far fewer people would win protection in Germany or elsewhere in Europe, since countries such as Hungary are generally declining to award refugee status.
In addition, asylum seekers deemed to be withholding vital information — such as their passports or proof of their country of origin — would be denied benefits. Asylum seekers also would need to remain in crowded reception centers for six months, rather than three, before earning the right to subsidized housing.
Those who failed to comply with orders to leave Germany could be subject to forced removal without advance notice.
It was unclear whether the measures, which must be approved by parliament before they can take effect, would continue to make exceptions for Syrians fleeing civil war.
“This draft counteracts the new German welcome culture,” said Karl Kopp, spokesman for the pro-refugee organization ProAsyl. “It contains a toughness and populism that is not acceptable.”
With the crisis building, and the European Union still divided over its response, European Council President Donald Tusk called an emergency meeting for Wednesday.
The U.N. refugee agency says more than 442,440 people have reached Europe this year on sea routes from Turkey or North Africa, and 2,921 have died along the way. The International Organization for Migration, which also helps coordinate aid efforts, puts the figure at 473,887, with 2,812 deaths.
Birnbaum reported from Brussels. Faiola reported from Berlin. Stephanie Kirchner in Berlin contributed to this report.
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