About 16,000 illegal border crossings were registered by the Croatian border police in the first 11 months of this year, which is a drop of 40% on the year, the head of the border administration, Zoran Niceno, said on Friday evening.

A similar drop has been recorded along the entire migrant route, that is, in Slovenia and in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Niceno told RTL television, adding that the route was changing and there were now more illegal crossings in Serbia, Romania, Hungary, and Austria.

The search is still ongoing for a 10-year-old girl who disappeared in the swollen River Dragonja on Thursday night as a group of migrants attempted to illegally cross the Croatian-Slovenian border, while a Turkish woman, the mother of the missing girl, has been rescued from the river. Croatian police officers and divers have been joined by Slovenian divers in the search for the missing girl.

“We have shown the ability to protect the European border, which is now the Schengen border,” Niceno said, underscoring that the engagement of police forces at the EU’s internal borders, with Slovenia and Hungary, would shift to external borders when Croatia joins the Schengen Area.

Compensatory measures will be applied at the border with Slovenia and Hungary, where border checks will be abolished and there will only be checks for COVID certificates and other checks when necessary, Niceno said.

On Thursday, EU member states agreed that Croatia had fulfilled all the requirements from the Schengen Area acquis, which paves the way for lifting internal border controls.