In the first 11 months of 2018 Croatian police arrested 7,500 illegal migrants, of whom 979 have sought international protection, while others were returned to the countries from where they had entered Croatia illegally, officials of the city of Karlovac Police Directorate told reporters on Friday.

The Karlovac County assembly held a session on Friday, focusing on security and illegal migrations in the county, which borders with Bosnia and Herzegovina in the southeast and Slovenia in the northwest.

Police Deputy-Director, Josip Celic, said that the cooperation with the police forces of those two countries was excellent, adding that the accusations of inhumane treatment that some migrants have levelled against Croatian police were unfounded.

“Our officers help children and adults who are in poor health, they give them water, food, medical assistance. It is absolutely untrue that there is any brutality, because any police officer who did that would be subject to disciplinary action and criminal liability,” he said.

The number of migrants arrested so far in 2018 is 66 percent higher than in the same period in 2017, with 547 people smugglers arrested this year as well, which is twice as many as last year, said the Chief of the County border police, Zoran Niceno, who added that the police had all the resources necessary to deal with the influx of migrants.

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