International conference on migration policies and perspectives was held in Zagreb on Monday.

“We call them all sorts of names – economic migrants, illegals, refugees, tsunami, Arabs, rapists, blacks… Why do we use these labels and categories? Maybe to get others to forget the one important category – they are people. Migrants and refugees are above all people like us, and at the centre of our focus should be their humanity and human dignity,” said head of the Jesuit refugee centre Tvrtko Barun.

Croatia is attempting to develop an efficient integration system for those who come to Croatia legally, said the senior official in the Interior Ministry, Terezija Gras.

“This isn’t easy. For that process to be successful, cooperation between institutions is necessary – from the ministries in charge of organising language courses, over the central office for housing and reconstruction, to the health, social and local communities which we are trying to prepare for the foreigners’ arrival so that there would be no fear or resistance towards them,” she said.

Gras added that it was important to think about the alternative options to solve the issue of illegal immigrants, who are coming to Croatia more and more.

This means we may need to relieve the asylum system and see if there is a way to enable these people to stay temporarily and get a work permit quickly, which would give them the option to integrate faster and better, she said.

“We are all exposed to migrations, they won’t stop in the short or medium term. This is a phenomenon we will be dealing with for a very long time and we all need to be better prepared,” she added.

Croatia received the most asylum requests in 2016, 2,233 of them. Last year, it had received 1,883 requests, and this year some 500.

The most requests were approved last year, some 250.

More than 75 percent of those who request asylum leave Croatia before the procedure is complete, which is why there is such a gap between the filed and approved requests, Gras said.

In terms of capacities, there are 100 spaces available in the asylum centre in Kutina, and some 600 in the Zagreb hotel Porin.

Gras announced that this year work would be done to improve conditions in Porin, and a new asylum centre will be built in the Mala Gorica settlement near Zagreb.

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