OPATOVAC,
Croatia — The migrants coming into Europe through the Western Balkans
in recent months have been resourceful and adaptable enough to slip
around unfriendly police officers, raging rivers, hostile borders and
razor-wire fences. But there is one thing they cannot evade, and that is
the looming winter.
Perhaps
as soon as late October and certainly by the end of November, the
season will shift in the Balkans. Finger-numbing rain, a fall fixture,
will descend into snow and freezing winds, complicating and even
endangering the arduous journeys starting from Syria and other war-torn nations into the heart of Western Europe.
An
unofficial humanitarian corridor, which had been operating for more
than a month with the unacknowledged cooperation of the nations
involved, had kept asylum-seekers steadily moving through the region,
and the summer’s squalid backups at blocked borders had nearly vanished.
But the situation was thrown into flux again with the announcement by Hungary on Friday that it intended to close its border with Croatia.
As
long as the migrants kept moving, the countries along the route were
able to deal with the numbers passing through, refugee officials and aid
workers said. And as long as there was a steady flow, the opportunity
for tragedy from the impending cold was lessened.
But
with fall winds carrying the first hints of frost, and the situation
along the borders unresolved, the migrants, aid workers and government
officials are anxiously looking ahead. If the numbers increase
drastically or, worse, if there are more border closings, there would be
an almost immediate backup that would quickly repopulate border camps
within a week — some of them open-air, others consisting mostly of
unheated tents.
“For
now, it is O.K.,” said Uros Jovanovic, the manager of a new processing
center being set up in a former psychiatric hospital near the
Serbo-Croatian border. “But in 20 days or so, it is going to be very
cold here.”
The
looming threats have kept migrants on the move, hurrying from border to
border to try to reach their destinations — most often Germany and
Sweden.
“I
am scared, everybody is scared,” said Ali Lolo, 35, a clothing store
manager from Damascus, Syria, who waited with his family last week
beneath a weather-rippled tarp at the encampment here, where few tents
are heated. “We are worried they will close the border, but we are also
worried about winter. We must get where we are going before the snows
fall.”
In
previous years, the flow of migrants into Europe slowed to a trickle as
winter approached, largely because the Mediterranean becomes especially
treacherous in cold months. But with more migrants avoiding the
once-popular sea route from Libya to southern Italy in favor of a
shorter, but still potentially dangerous, sea crossing from Turkey to
the nearest Greek islands, the numbers flowing into Europe continue in
the thousands, with a record 5,800 registered in just one day this month
on Serbia’s border with Macedonia.
“The
fear of borders closing and winter approaching is just making for a
rush, rush, rush,” said Mette Petersen, regional spokesman for the
Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
Governments
across the region are struggling to find vacant buildings, like
military barracks or schools, which can be quickly converted into heated
housing for migrants, should the path forward become blocked. And aid
workers are also trying to assemble a stockpile of blankets, heavy coats
and winterized tents, just in case the worst happens.
Closing the Back Door to Europe
In recent months European nations have worked to block
the main route taken by migrants fleeing war and upheaval.
Hungary completed a 108-mile razor-wire fence along its border with Serbia
last month, following a free-for-all this summer that saw squalid
encampments sprout across the region. After weeks of tension and at
least one violent skirmish, the migrants simply shifted their path
through neighboring Croatia.
Because
Austria and Germany continued to accept the migrants, Hungary agreed to
transfer those crossing its border with Croatia directly into Austria
by train. But Hungary also finished construction of a razor-wire fence
along its border with Croatia, and now has closed that route to migrants, as well.
On
Sunday, trains were carrying migrants through Croatia and dropping them
off at its northwestern border with Slovenia. From there, they were
being bused to the Austrian border.
An estimated 3,300 migrants have entered Slovenia that way since Hungary closed its border at midnight Friday. About 2,000 had entered Austria by evening on Sunday.
Migration
officials warned that it might be a matter of days before the system
collapses under the strain, as the migrants keep crossing from Turkey
into Greece and through the Balkans, many saying they want to get ahead
of the winter and the possibility of further border closings. Slovenia
has estimated it can manage things if Croatia admits up to 2,500
migrants a day. But Croatia has asked Slovenia to increase its daily
admittance and take in at least 5,000 migrants. Austria, Slovenia’s
northern neighbor, insists it cannot handle more than 1,500 people
entering the country daily.
“We
are facing huge demands from Croatia and severe limitations from
Austria,” said Bostjan Sefic, a senior official at the Slovenian
interior ministry.
The
only way that the human flow will run smoothly through Slovenia is if
authorities are able to “balance the number of migrants entering the
country with the number of those leaving it,” Mr. Sefic said.
In
Austria, where thousands are requesting asylum while the majority press
on toward Germany, officials at the largest reception camp outside
Vienna hope to have all of the tents down by the end of the month and
shift migrants into heated containers and other buildings.
“We
were freezing,” said Fadi, 42, a former hair salon owner who arrived at
the camp on Oct. 5, and who declined to give his last name to protect
his family in Syria. “We didn’t sleep. We did exercises all night long
to keep warm.”
So
far the coldest weather in central Croatia has been 42 degrees
Fahrenheit, or nearly 6 degrees Celsius, last Monday night, but the
long-range forecast calls for temperatures to fall below freezing this
week.
With the open borders, the system seemed to be working.
“You
should have seen it here a few weeks ago,” said Ivana Marisavyevic, the
Red Cross coordinator in the camp beside the main train station in
Belgrade, Serbia. “There were many, many times more people here than
there are now. Now, most just stay for a few hours before catching the
next bus.”
The Scale of the Migrant Crisis, From 160 to Millions
The latest E.U. proposal addresses just a fraction of a human crisis numbering in the millions.
Indeed, only a few dozen small tents filled the muddy camp.
“It
used to take two or three days to be registered at the Macedonian
border, but now it’s less than a day,” said Jasmina Selmanovic, a
volunteer at the Serbian camp.
In
Principovac, a Serbian border town, workers are rushing to transform a
long disused psychiatric hospital in the first of what the country hopes
will be several heated facilities.
“We
got the electricity going, and in a few days we should have water, too,
and heat by the end of the week,” said Mr. Jovanovic, the manager of
the processing center. “At the moment, things are fine. But nobody knows
what might happen.”
The biggest unknown of all is how harsh the winter will be.
“Maybe
it will be a mild winter,” said Aleksandar Vulin, the minister of
Labor, Employment, Veterans and Social Policy in Serbia. “Who knows what
will happen?”
Source: NY Times
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