First videos and photos of horror on Sava River in Croatia: Migrants drown as smuggler's boat capsizes

Photo: Zeljka Gavranovic / PlusPortal

Three people have died while several others have been injured when a boat capsized overnight on the Sava River, near Slavonski Brod in Croatia.

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It is reported that the victims are migrants who were being smuggled across the river by a citizen of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH).

The Slavonski Brod river fire chief, Ivan Vuleta, told Plus Portal that firefighters were this morning pulling people out of the ice-cold Sava.

They encountered several people clinging to the boat and crying out - some of them close to drowning. According to reports, the victims are Asians.

The citizen of Bosnia and Herzegovina, who is suspected of smuggling the migrants across the river, also ended up in the Croatian town's general hospital, the website said.

"This morning at 05:20, the Operational Communications Center of the Brod-Posavina Police Department received a report that a boat had overturned on the Sava River in the area of Slavonski Brod and that several people were in the river in need of assistance. Police were sent to the scene, and other emergency services were also called. The officers immediately started the rescue operation and pulled 13 people, foreign nationals, out of the cold Sava River," the police announced.

"They suffered hypothermia and have been transported to the hospital in Slavonski Brod. A citizen of Bosnia and Herzegovina, who is linked to the commission of a crime, is also in the hospital and under supervision of police officers. Police are continuing their investigation to establish the facts and circumstances related to the incident," police spokeswoman Kata Nujic is quoted as saying.

(Telegraf.rs/Photos: Plus Portal)