Croatia to deploy Coast Guard patrol boat to Mediterranean

Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic attended a EU emergency summit convened so that European leaders can agree on a response to the dramatic crisis caused by the influx of migrants and the alarming number of deaths in the Mediterranean.

Croatia will offer a Coast Guard patrol boat to assist rescue operations in the Mediterranean, Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic said on Thursday in Brussels.

"That's a horrific crisis in which people need help and in which we should attempt to deal with people trying to make a profit out of it, which is a lot easier said than done. In the meantime, we can help those people and Croatia will offer its assistance by sending a Coast Guard patrol boat... that is a humane and good thing for Croatia to do, which is a candidate to enter the Schengen area and has to participate in that system," Milanovic said.

He added that Croatia is a "Mediterranean country with more than a thousand kilometres of coast" and that there are a lot of reasons why it should be involved. "That will cost us something, but this is something bigger," he said.

Milanovic explained that sending a Coast Guard patrol boat to help in the rescuing of migrants was a proposal by the government and that he assumed President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic would give her consent.

(Hina) 

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