Since Wednesday, the New York Times reports, more than 17,000 refugees have entered Croatia, having been blocked from entering Hungary and sent on from Serbia. Now, as Croatia closes its borders with Slovenia, they are stranded there.

The refugees—many of whom come from war-torn countries like Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan—are largely heading for northern European nations like Germany and Sweden (via, in this case, Slovenia and then Austria). The Balkans have become the de facto route, which presents infrastructural issues for countries not equipped to handle then.

On Friday, the Croatian government announced that it would close its borders with Serbia. “Don’t come here anymore,” Interior Minister Ranko Ostojic said. “This is not the road to Europe.”

Twenty years ago, Europe saw its biggest refugee crisis since the Second World War during the break-up of Yugoslavia: according to the Times, some 2.3 million people had fled their homes there by 1992. Today, the region is still struggling: the average gross monthly wage in Serbia is 518 euros, or about $585, and unemployment is about 18 percent.

“We have much empathy in the region for migrants but countries across the region are poor, their institutions are not yet developed, and most states can barely deal with the daily problems of government, nevermind a migration crisis,” said Sead Numanovic, former editor-in-chief of Bosnian newspaper Avaz. “These countries just don’t have the capacity.”

Photo credit: AP Images. Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.