by Our Foreign Desk

CROATIA lifted its blockade of the border with Serbia yesterday following a dispute over how to manage the tens of thousands of refugees crossing towards western Europe.

Croatian police said that the border was now open “to all traffic without restrictions.”

Croatia had accused Serbia of bussing people to its border instead of channelling them to Hungary in the north.

But the Hungary-Serbia border has been closed since September 15. About 59,000 people desperately seeking safety had since crossed from Serbia to Croatia.

Croatia first welcomed the refugees, thinking that they would go on to Slovenia, Austria and thence to Germany.

But Slovenia shut its gates leaving Croatia, one of the poorest members of the European Union, to cope on its own.

The Croatian government then started bussing the refugees to Hungary in the latest leg of a sickening game of pass the parcel.

Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban asid yesterday that he would seek the support of the United Nations and neighbouring countries before shutting the Croatian border as it has others.

But his government is continuing to build a razor-wire fence there — as it has on border with Serbia and now “temporarily” the one with Slovenia.

European Union President Donald Tusk said yesterday that the bosses’ bloc could do with a border guard force to stop an “excessive wave” of needy people.

• Finland’s government condemned “racist protests against asylum-seekers” yesterday after a bigot dressed as a member of the Ku Klux Klan demonstrated outside a refugee shelter.