Within one month of Croatia joining the Schengen visa-issuing countries, the number of asylum requests increased by an astounding 600 per cent, Zoran Niceno, assistant director general of police, has confirmed.

Mr Niceno disclosed that Croatia received 1,390 asylum applications in January alone, a 600 per cent increase over the number of applications recorded in the same month last year. 

Since January 1, when Croatia became a member of the EU, its residents have benefited from border controls that let EU citizens move freely among the 27 nations that make up the Schengen region without having to deal with the inconveniences of passport checks and other travel snags.

Two thousand five hundred migrants entered the nation last month, according to local media, and more than half of them—1490 of them—have already applied for asylum with the Croatian government.

In addition, the authorities reported a 60 per cent drop in the number of illegal immigrants, attributing this to the deployment of at least 1000 police personnel to the nation’s borders to deter smuggling and unauthorized border crossings.

“Thus, we pointed out to the MUP the irregularity that was established in Cetingrad, after which the MUP unreservedly carried out certain disciplinary procedures and sanctioned police officers who, despite the findings of the mechanism, acted contrary to the rules of the service and endangered the safety and health of the persons with whom they were then in contact,” Schengenvisainfo quoted Robert Markt, the executive president of the Red Cross in Croatia as saying.