Kupa River Near Damalj: Five Migrants Drown

On Friday afternoon, September 25, a tragedy unfolded on the Kupa River near the village of Damalj, close to Severin na Kupi on the border between Croatia and Slovenia, in which five migrants died. A group had attempted to cross the river into Slovenia, and several of its members drowned before reaching the far bank. The case also touches Serbia, since the country remains part of the same Balkan route migrants use to reach Western Europe, and Croatian officials, telling this same story, also point to Serbia’s visa free regime as part of the wider picture at the border.

According to the Croatian news site tportal, the Vrbovsko police station received a call around 3:30 p.m. from police in Delnice reporting that a large group of people, believed to be migrants, was in the river. The first officer to reach the scene, named by Novi list as Matej Podobnik, an officer from Delnice, jumped into the water and, with the help of a colleague and local residents who joined the rescue, pulled five people to shore and saved their lives. Fourteen firefighters from the Vrbovsko and Lukovdol volunteer fire brigades also took part in the search, using three vehicles and a boat.

Sources differ on the size of the group and on how many were ultimately rescued. Tportal reports that the group numbered around twenty people, of whom fourteen made it to the Slovenian side, five were rescued, and five drowned. Novi list, on the other hand, puts the group at 22 people, of whom eleven crossed into Slovenia, six were pulled from the river alive, and five died. Both outlets agree that most of the group were Afghan nationals, and that five people drowned.

Zoran Niceno, head of the Border Directorate at Croatia’s Interior Ministry, said in a statement on the tragedy that the area is a known crossing point for illegal migration and is under heightened police surveillance, though its size makes it impossible to cover with patrols alone.

“The smugglers are unscrupulous, and they tried to cross into Slovenia as quickly as possible because the police were nearby.”

Niceno added that the risk of drowning is high because migrants do not know the river.

“If they misjudge where it’s shallow while crossing, they go under, and it ends in death, because they can’t swim.”

He also noted that Croatian police have pulled 75 people from rivers so far this year alone.

Why is this stretch of the Kupa so dangerous for migrants?

The stretch of the Kupa near Severin and Damalj is, according to Niceno, one of the known points of illegal crossing because the border there is natural and hard to access, and police, though present, cannot cover it in full given the length of the terrain. Mario Muzevic, commander of the Vrbovsko volunteer fire brigade, described the rescue operation itself.

“At the call of the police, we came to the scene of the tragedy, searched the riverbed and pulled out the dead. Unfortunately, the routes these unfortunate people use in trying to illegally cross the state border are often very dangerous, and the Kupa can be even more dangerous if you don’t know it as well as you should.”

Niceno singled out the Lipa camp in Bosnia and Herzegovina, about five kilometers from the Croatian border, as one of the key points on the migrant route, from which some migrants set out to attempt an illegal crossing, depending on which smugglers they can afford. Croatian police have opened a criminal investigation into the circumstances of the Kupa tragedy.

Niceno also warned that Bosnia and Herzegovina has a serious shortage of border police, which is why Croatian Interior Minister Davor Bozinovic met with his Italian and Slovenian counterparts in Italy last week to discuss possibly relaunching trilateral joint patrols, with the potential involvement of Frontex in Bosnia and Herzegovina. As a further complication at the border, Niceno mentioned Serbia’s visa free regime for citizens of Russia, Turkey and China, as well as the arrival of foreign workers on long term visas in Serbia, some of whom later attempt to cross illegally into Croatia.

The Kupa tragedy is not the first migrant death on Croatian territory this year. In early May, the bodies of four migrants were found near Netretic, while two others were found in serious medical condition. In June, one person died near Udbina when a car with Bulgarian license plates, carrying foreign nationals who had crossed the border illegally, veered off the road. In December of last year, three migrants drowned on the Sava River after their boat capsized, while a search continued for a fourth person.