Local residents hand out food and beverages to migrants arriving in Croatia from Serbia in the eastern Croatian village of Bapska, before they make their way to the Opatovac registration centre about 20km away.

Reuters
Brussels


The European Union yesterday approved a plan to share out 120,000 refugees across its 28 states, overriding vehement opposition from four ex-communist eastern nations.
Diplomats said interior ministers meeting in Brussels had voted to launch the scheme, backed by Germany and other big powers, in order to tackle the continent’s worst refugee crisis since World War Two.
The Czech minister tweeted that he had voted against, along with colleagues from Slovakia, Romania and Hungary, with Finland abstaining.
Prague had earlier warned that any attempt to impose such a scheme would be unworkable and could end in “big ridicule” for governments and EU authorities.
“We will soon realise that the emperor has no clothes. Common sense lost today,” Czech Interior Minister Milan Chovanec tweeted after the vote.
Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico said pushing through the quota system had “nonsensically” caused a deep rift over a highly sensitive issue and that, “as long as I am prime minister”, Slovakia would not implement a quota.
This year’s influx of nearly half a million people fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East, Asia and Africa has plunged the EU into disputes over border controls and bitter recriminations over how to share out responsibility.
“If we fail to find the right solution in the long term, the migrant crisis could truly threaten the existence of the European Union. But I am not a pessimist, I believe that we will find joint measures,” Slovenian Prime Minister Miro Cerar told Reuters in an interview.
Eastern states with no tradition of integrating large numbers of Muslims are anxious about the impact on their societies and keen to avoid any signal that might encourage even more desperate people to set sail across the Mediterranean for Europe.
Ministers had hoped to achieve consensus at yesterday’s meeting rather than ramming through a vote in which the easterners would be in the minority, fearing this could further poison relations.
French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said the plan had been approved by a “crushing majority”.
“This decision is testament to the capacity of Europe to take responsibility and progress,” he said.
But a diplomat from one of the countries opposed to the plan described the atmosphere around the council table as “terrible”, adding: “This is a bad day for Europe.”
The UN refugee agency, the UNHCR, said the EU decision was an “important first step in a united European response to managing the refugee crisis”.
Spokesman Melissa Fleming added: “This must be coupled with the immediate creation or expansion of facilities in Greece and Italy to receive and assist large numbers of arriving refugees and migrants, and where people would be screened and identified for relocation.”
The 120,000 people the bloc was seeking to share out were equivalent to just 20 days’ worth of arrivals at the current rate, Fleming said earlier.
Together with 40,000 covered in an earlier agreement, the European Commission said the EU was now in a position to relocate a total of 160,000 people “in clear need of international protection” in the next two years.
Refugees and migrants arriving in Greece and Italy have been streaming north across the continent to reach more affluent nations such as Germany, triggering disputes between governments in central and eastern Europe as they alternately try to block the flow or shunt the burden on to their neighbours.
Norway became the latest member of Europe’s 26-nation Schengen area, where people can normally travel across frontiers without showing a passport, to say it would intensify border controls.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development said Europe could expect a record 1mn people to request asylum this year, and almost half would probably qualify to be taken in.
In Germany, by far the most popular destination, the head of domestic intelligence said there was a big worry that radical Islamists living in the country could try to recruit young refugees “who could be easy prey”.
EU leaders will hold an emergency summit today at which they want to focus on ramping up aid for Syrian refugees in Turkey and the rest of the Middle East and tightening control of the bloc’s external frontiers.

Travel guide unveils a ‘refugee special’
The Routard travel guide that has led generations of French travellers through foreign lands has published a special version to help refugees navigate daily life in France.
“The idea was to make a Routard guide using only illustrations, which show problems which may arise in daily situations,” said Philippe Gloaguen, the founder of the company who came up with the idea.
Named ‘Hello’, the 96-page guide is described as a “universal visual dictionary” and is made up of colourful drawings of clothing, places, food and places of worship, allowing non-French speakers to communicate what they need.
Doctor, dentist, colours or even illustrations indicating that a food order is to take away or eat in - hundreds of everyday items and places are depicted to make the refugees’ lives easier.
And while the language of love is meant to be universal, Routard did not want to take any chances and even included a picture of a man, a woman and a heart that someone could use to make themselves understood.
“We quickly realised that the problem wasn’t as much the welcome as the complexity of communication,” said Gloaguen.
“Among the Eritreans for example, only 1% speak Arabic and it is nearly impossible to find translators. It is an insane waste of time.”
Gloaguen describes his guide as one of several efforts from French people and businesses to help refugees, such as those who have offered to house them or supermarkets who have donated food.
He said he was “ashamed” of the government’s “terrible” offer to take 24,000 refugees as floods of desperate people risk their lives to seek a better life in France.
“Sure there is a crisis, difficulties, but it is a question of humanity,” said Gloaguen. “These people are not delinquents or criminals, they are just families with women and children who are fleeing death.  When we know that our grandparents’ generation risked their lives to protect Jews, I am a little ashamed.”
The guide, which is free, will not be handed directly to refugees but will be distributed through associations who help them. An initial print run of 4,000 guides will be ready in about two weeks, but it can already be downloaded from www.routard.com.