ZAGREB, Nov 9: Police in Croatia on Saturday said that four men were arrested over a racially-motivated attack against foreign workers followed by three similar incidents that left one Nepali seriously injured.
The European Union country of 3.8 million people is struggling to overcome chronic labour shortage as it faces mass emigration and a shrinking population.
Traditionally reliant on seasonal workers from its Balkan neighbours, Croatia is increasingly counting on labourers from Nepal, India, the Philippines and elsewhere to fill tens of thousands of jobs notably in construction and its key tourism sector on the Adriatic coast.
Police said on Saturday that the four arrested, who are suspected of physically attacking a food-delivery worker in the coastal town of Split, were being investigated over a "hate crime".
Late Friday, a 41-year-old foreign national and one attacker sustained minor injuries, a police statement said.
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The attack was immediately followed by three other incidents targeting foreign food-delivery workers, also in Split, in which one Nepali was seriously injured.
Another victim was Indian, while the nationalities of the other two were not disclosed.
Police said a search for the perpetrators was ongoing.
The government condemned the incidents, labelling them "shocking and disturbing" and vowed on social media "not to allow Croatia to become a country where violence and hatred towards foreign workers are normalised".
"Foreign workers filled a segment on the labour market that we obviously could not," Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic told reporters citing construction and tourist sectors.
Croatia in 2023 provided nearly 120,000 non-EU nationals with work permits, 40 percent more than the previous year.
This year the figure will be surpassed as nearly 150,000 work permits have so far been issued to non-EU nationals.
The number of attacks on foreign workers, notably those delivering food has been increasing, police in the capital Zagreb said earlier this year.
In most cases, they were not racially-motivated but were robberies.
Migrants have been regularly pilloried online with the new labour force facing language barriers and negative attitudes toward foreigners.
Ethnic Croats make up more than 90 percent of Croatia's population -- nearly 80 percent of whom are Roman Catholics.
