September 18 (SeeNews) - The Croatian interior affairs ministry said that the border crossings with Serbia have been closed to slow down the influx of migrants from the country's eastern neighbour.
The ministry said in a statement that by 0800 CET on Friday more than 13,000 migrants had entered Croatian territory from Serbia.
Croatian state-owned rail passenger carrier HZ Putnicki Prijevoz said in a separate statement on Friday it has suspended traffic on its international lines towards Serbia and Slovenia due to the migrant crisis.
The migrants were forced to try to find their way towards Western Europe through Croatia after Hungary closed its border crossings with Serbia and built a fence along the entire length of the border with its eastern neighbour.
Croatian prime minister Zoran Milanovic said in a statement on Thursday that Croatia is facing a humanitarian crisis and that the country is doing everything necessary to maintain safety and uphold EU rules.
Earlier this month, the European Commission said it plans to relocate more than 7,900 refugees from Italy, Greece and Hungary to Bulgaria, Croatia, Romania and Slovenia as part of a strategy to solve the refugee crisis in Europe. The relocation quotes are based on objective and quantifiable criteria including a country's population, gross domestic product, average number of past asylum applications and unemployment rate.
Hundreds of thousand of asylum-seekers have entered EU territory over the last few weeks, most of them via Hungary, a member of the Schengen area.