Croatia flooded with refugees, critics say EU failing them

There was chaos at the Croatian border on Friday. Hundreds more refugees arrive every hour, all searching for a safe passage to Germany or other countries in Western Europe.    

Some were loaded onto buses and sent back towards Hungary, which has taken a hardline stance on the refugee crisis, and fortified its borders. 

Others just kept walking along the Croatian border after they'd been turned away.... looking for another opening.

In the past week alone, some 27,000 refugees have entered Croatia and the situation along its borderlines reflects confusion and disagreement inside the European Union itself -- The EU still has no coherent, coordinated response to the crisis in place.     

To its critics, it is proof once more that the EU itself has failed to live up to the promise of its mandate. 

Babar Baloch is a spokesperson with the United Nations High Comissionor for Refugees which is the UN's refugee agency. He is part of a team providing emergency aid to the refugees on the Croatian border.  Babar Baloch joined us from a transit centre in Croatia along its eastern border with Serbia.

Elizabeth Collett is the Europe Director of the Migration Policy Institute. She joined us from Brussels to explain more about how Europe is affected by the refugee crisis.

John Feffer is co-director of Foreign Policy in Focus at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C. 
 

This segment was produced by The Current's Sujata Berry, Julian Uzielli and Leif Zapf-Gilje.