Croatia

Huddled around cooking fires as winter looms in Bosnia, refugees are risking beatings and humiliation from Croatian police in the desperate hope of a new life in the European Union.

Largely from Afghanistan, many of them have endured months or years of flight from war and poverty, only to be met by Croatian police clubs and pointed guns at the gates to EU territory.

Sečovlje – Slovenian citizen Joško Joras has ended a hunger strike he started on 30 September after Croatian authorities seized a piece of land he rents from the Slovenian Agriculture and Forestry Fund. Joras told the STA on Monday he would now take the fund to court over its failure to respect contractual obligations.

Establishing the Croatian border-monitoring mechanism has turned into a litmus test for the EU in its attempt to build an effective, comprehensive, lasting and humanitarian solution to an increasing number of EU member states, including Greece and Romania as well as Croatia, using pushbacks to halt migration flows.

"There's no reason to worry. We were there [before], we saw how it is, now we will also have a [military] escort and we are safe."

This is what Snezana Amidzic's husband Zoran told her when they spoke on the phone not long before he died in October 1991.

Migrants are suffering sometimes-violent illegal pushbacks carried out by special police units at the EU's borders, especially Greece and Croatia, an investigation published on Oct. 6 by media including Germany's Der Spiegel found.

This is indeed disgraceful behaviour by Serbian authorities, the Croatian portal Index.hr quoted him as saying Tuesday.

Around 30 health workers who do not have the now mandatory COVID-19 vaccination certificates, and refuse to be tested, gathered in Croatia's capital, Zagreb, on Monday, protesting against the requirement, Index reported.

A pier on fire in Dubrovnik, Croatia during the war in November 1991. Photo: EPA/PETER NORTHALL.

Tomislav Tomasevic, who has been in office as Zagreb's mayor since the beginning of June, announced fresh changes to the city's management on Tuesday, including abolishing free parking spaces in front of healthcare facilities.

Croatia's political leadership, wartime generals and war veterans gathered on Thursday in the town of Knin to mark the anniversary of the victorious military offensive, Operation Storm, that practically ended the independence war in the country in 1995.

Part of the ceremony took place at the Knin Fortress, while another part was held at the town's football stadium.