Croatian border police have discovered and helped 20 illegal migrants in the Nova Gradiska area of Slavonski Brod-Posavina County, the county police said on Saturday.

On Thursday, around 10 am, a police patrol spotted a group of 17 persons, including 10 men, six women and a 12-year-old child, near the Croatian border between the villages of Dolina and Sicice. They were nationals of Burundi who had illegally crossed the Sava River border in a boat from Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The police saw that the child was unwell and called an ambulance, which took the child and its mother to the hospital in Nova Gradiska, about 150 km southeast of Zagreb. The child was released after receiving medical attention.

Near the village of Pivare, on 15 November Croatian police came across three Afghan men who had most likely entered Croatia by swimming across the Sava. Since they were barefoot and without jackets, the police called the Croatian Red Cross and provided them with clothes and shoes.

The illegal migrants were treated in accordance with the Foreign Nationals Act and were ordered to leave the territory of Croatia, the police said.