Slovenia blocks over 1000 migrants at border

Croatia had asked its northern border to accept 5,000 migrants daily but Slovenia insists it would only take half that number. Although there was no agreement between the Croatian police and their Slovenian colleagues, the train continued towards Slovenia and stopped at Trnovec, 200 metres from the border. Amid fears that migrants might try to get in via their new transit country, Budapest says it will temporarily reinstate border controls with Slovenia.

Croatia has been struggling to manage the influx after Hungary closed its border, rerouting refugees toward Slovenia.

Slovenia accepted 2,100 people on Sunday (18 October), the Slovenian news agency reported, and did not accept a second train from Croatia carrying a few 2,000 people.

The UNICEF spokesman also criticized the lack of heating and sanitary facilities for children and families at a refugee center in Opatovac, a Croatian town on the Serbian border. But Slovenia has canceled all rail traffic with fellow European Union member and former Yugoslav republic Croatia, potentially slowing the movement of people just as autumn winds and rain are sweeping through the Balkans. The arrival of hundreds of thousands of refugees this year to Europe's shores, fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East, Africa and Asia by boat across the Mediterranean and Aegean, has exposed deep divisions in the EU.

The Balkans faced a growing backlog of migrants today, thousands building up on cold, wet borders after the closure of Hungary's southern frontier diverted them to Slovenia.

"We need to return to orderly and controlled processes and I sensed Turkey's readiness to work toward that", Merkel said.

Austrian officials are denying reports that they are restricting entries from Slovenia to migrants seeking asylum in 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 almost vanished. On Monday, parents were seen handing over children to Croatian police across the metal barriers. Many others fed up with waiting in the rain tried to outflank police positions, walking through orchards and cornfields, stumbling in the mud along the way.

"We are in cold weather and the place is not good", said Farouk al-Hatib, a Syrian who was waiting to cross from Serbia. "Our message for the governments is to take into consideration our suffering".

Slovenia had previously expressed concern about the situation after Hungary sealed off its border with the country this weekend.

Slovenian media say the migrants will be allowed into the country on Monday.

"Everything has slowed down since Hungary closed the border", a police officer at the Berkasovo border crossing in Serbia told AFP.

The influx has exposed divisions within Europe, with Hungary's right-wing government taking a hard line against mainly Muslim migrants.