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)