Introduction

In 2016, the refugee crisis demonstrated new trends that highlighted crucial issues for future migration processes in Europe. My first encounter with the crisis itself was in 2015, when I was at a conference in Budapest, Hungary. Rumours about refugees from South Asia and Syria arriving in the Budapest city centre and officials closing the railway stations circulated among the conference participants and guests. Soon the story was confirmed, when refugees began to march towards Germany over the Erszebet Bridge because of the closed railways and the lack of organized transport to their destination (Hardman 2015). A few days later, Hungary closed its borders and erected razor wire barriers on its borders with Serbia and Croatia. With the way from Serbia to Germany through Hungary closed, the main flow of people was redirected towards my home country, Croatia. The first transit camp was built in Opatovac, next to the Šid-Tovarnik border crossing between Serbia and Croatia. Although there was a lot of information about them in the Croatian media, the refugees themselves were not visible in other parts of Croatia. Later, when a new transit camp was built next to Slavonski Brod due to the weather conditions and inability to house more people in the existing camps, the possibility of meeting or even seeing a refugee was limited to officials and volunteers in the camp. There were many different stories in both the Croatian and world media about the living conditions and human rights of the refugees in the camps along the Balkan route.