EU Border Tragedy: Smugglers Thrive as Brussels Fails to Protect Borders

Paul Riverbank, 12/12/2025Tragic migrant crossing exposes deadly risks, rampant smuggling, and EU struggles with border protection.

There, a boat strained across the river, overfilled and perilous. It’s the kind of scene that usually escapes notice—but not this morning. Before 6 a.m., rescue teams were already scrambling. Ivan Vuleta, a firefighter with lines on his face from years of similar emergencies, got the dispatch: People in the river, somewhere in the murk. “When we reached the water, everything was chaos,” Vuleta would later recall to Croatian television.

Eight were plucked out, dazed and battered. But for at least three passengers, the river offered no return. There were emergency lights, shouting, the slap of water against hulls as rescuers searched the current. Those who survived clung to life vests or whatever floated. On shore, a paramedic’s hands shook as he checked pulses.

The Sava’s reputation—quiet, even scenic—means little to anyone who’s found themselves pushed to its edge by desperation. For years, its waters have become a battleground for the hopes of migrants from the Middle East, Africa, and Asia, all pushing north toward the promise of Western Europe. The path brings them to Croatia’s threshold, where the borders of the European Union blur with barbed wire and backroads.

Few plan to cross a river like this. It takes both calculation and a certain abandonment of fear. Yet here they were—men and women, possibly children, their nationalities still uncertain, guided by those who profit from such risk. Croatian police announced they’d detained a Bosnian man, badly shaken but alive. He’s now suspected of smuggling these people, though details remain thin as the morning fog.

As authorities counted the injured—figures that shifted with each report—and tried to determine who remained missing, the river kept moving. The calm returned, indifferent as always.

The routes pulling migrants through the Balkans, winding out of Turkey or Greece and snaking up through North Macedonia, Bosnia, and Serbia, have become as familiar as they are fraught. Slavonski Brod, usually an unremarkable town on Croatia’s border with Bosnia, now stands as the latest marker in a chain of tragedies driven by forces far from its sleepy streets.

In moments like this, the policies and rhetoric swirling in Brussels or Zagreb evaporate. All that remains are the choices people make when everything else has been stripped away by war, or poverty, or simple hope. Some pay for a spot on a boat because the official doors are shut—or too dangerous to approach. They trust men whose compassion ends where their profit begins.

On Thursday, the price was steep. A few made it out alive, coughing and cold. Others vanished beneath the surface. By late morning, the only witnesses were exhausted firefighters, a handful of grieving onlookers, and the river itself.

There aren’t quick answers for Europe or for the next group who’ll surely try this way again. But every time such a tragedy unfolds, it carves another line into the debate—about borders, about humanity, and about how little divides survival from loss when the world grows dark and the fog closes in.

Just before sunrise, the banks of the Sava river near Slavonski Brod were nearly invisible. The fog had rolled in early, swallowing up headlights and drowning landmarks, making the water disappear into the haze.There, a boat strained across the river, overfilled and perilous. It’s the kind of scene that usually escapes notice—but not this morning. Before 6 a.m., rescue teams were already scrambling. Ivan Vuleta, a firefighter with lines on his face from years of similar emergencies, got the dispatch: People in the river, somewhere in the murk. “When we reached the water, everything was chaos,” Vuleta would later recall to Croatian television.Eight were plucked out, dazed and battered. But for at least three passengers, the river offered no return. There were emergency lights, shouting, the slap of water against hulls as rescuers searched the current. Those who survived clung to life vests or whatever floated. On shore, a paramedic’s hands shook as he checked pulses.The Sava’s reputation—quiet, even scenic—means little to anyone who’s found themselves pushed to its edge by desperation. For years, its waters have become a battleground for the hopes of migrants from the Middle East, Africa, and Asia, all pushing north toward the promise of Western Europe. The path brings them to Croatia’s threshold, where the borders of the European Union blur with barbed wire and backroads.Few plan to cross a river like this. It takes both calculation and a certain abandonment of fear. Yet here they were—men and women, possibly children, their nationalities still uncertain, guided by those who profit from such risk. Croatian police announced they’d detained a Bosnian man, badly shaken but alive. He’s now suspected of smuggling these people, though details remain thin as the morning fog.As authorities counted the injured—figures that shifted with each report—and tried to determine who remained missing, the river kept moving. The calm returned, indifferent as always.The routes pulling migrants through the Balkans, winding out of Turkey or Greece and snaking up through North Macedonia, Bosnia, and Serbia, have become as familiar as they are fraught. Slavonski Brod, usually an unremarkable town on Croatia’s border with Bosnia, now stands as the latest marker in a chain of tragedies driven by forces far from its sleepy streets.In moments like this, the policies and rhetoric swirling in Brussels or Zagreb evaporate. All that remains are the choices people make when everything else has been stripped away by war, or poverty, or simple hope. Some pay for a spot on a boat because the official doors are shut—or too dangerous to approach. They trust men whose compassion ends where their profit begins.On Thursday, the price was steep. A few made it out alive, coughing and cold. Others vanished beneath the surface. By late morning, the only witnesses were exhausted firefighters, a handful of grieving onlookers, and the river itself.There aren’t quick answers for Europe or for the next group who’ll surely try this way again. But every time such a tragedy unfolds, it carves another line into the debate—about borders, about humanity, and about how little divides survival from loss when the world grows dark and the fog closes in.