Stress mounts as migrants shunted over borders
BREGANA, Croatia -- Croatia is facing a huge new challenge this morning as the impact of the migrant crisis deepens in Eastern Europe. The government says 27,000 migrants and refugees have entered the nation since Hungary shut its border with neighboring Serbia last week.
CBS News correspondent Mark Phillips is in the city of Bregana, one of the latest pressure points as the miserable game of "pass the refugee" plays out across south-eastern Europe.
Each country is trying to kick the problem down the road to the next, says Phillips, and frustration is beginning to take a toll -- tensions, not just between the refugees and the countries holding them back, but between the migrants themselves, are boiling over.
Croatian police struggle to maintain order as people who have already spent weeks trekking through up to half a dozen countries to even make it this far grapple for space on overcrowded buses.
The weather has turned cold and wet, leaving masses of people -- including many families with young children - to huddle against the elements as they yearn to get out of the Balkan countries that don't want them anyway, and further into Europe.
In Croatia, now a major refugee route, authorities brought a train. Nobody was going to wait for a ticket; the crush to board became frantic. The competition was between families with children, who officials were trying to move on first, and single men, who seemed to outnumber the others.
Things were no more orderly when the refugee wave crashed up against the next barrier; in this case the border between Croatia and Slovenia. The Slovenes at first refused to let anyone in, but have begun bringing in buses to move people through the country toward Austria.
Here again, families get separated, the stress -- on the kids in particular -- approaches the breaking point. They're moving, but it isn't quick and it isn't pretty.
Mohammed, a refugee from Hama in western Syria, told CBS News he was informed by Croatian officials that they should have him on the move in a matter of hours, "but as you can see, it's a matter of days."
This latest wave of migrants has left its mark in Croatia; on the landscape, leaving behind pile of trash, and on the reputation of the governments in the region.
The Slovenians now seem to be closing the crossing from Croatia. Phillips says they're putting up a border fence. The message is clear to those who've not reached this stage in the journey to the wealthy nations further west: don't come.