The body of a man was found in the River Sava at the eastern Croatian town of Slavonski Brod on Thursday morning, with his personal documents indicating that he is a foreigner who had illegally entered the country, while an hour before that discovery police rescued ten migrants whose boat had overturned in the Sava at Donja Bebrina.

Brod-Posavina County Police Department spokeswoman Kata Nujic said that the man found drowned is believed to have been in the water for several days.

“In an attempt to reach EU countries, foreign nationals often risk their lives and swim across the perilous River Sava or try to cross it is small rubber boats in groups or alone,” Nujic said.

Before finding the drowned man, the border police early on Thursday morning found, near Donja Bebrina, 18 kilometres east of Slavonski Brod, a small rubber boat with a dozen people in it.

“At one point the boat overturned, and police officers jumped to the migrants’ aid, pulling three foreign nationals from the river into the police boat. Seven other foreigners managed to swim to the shore,” Nujic said, noting that all ten persons in that group of illegal migrants were men from Afghanistan.

She said that in line with the law they would be returned to Bosnia and Herzegovina, from where they had arrived.