Three dead as migrant boat capsizes on Croatia-Bosnia border

Rescuers pulled 13 migrants from a cold river; one died and others with hypothermia were hospitalised

Three would-be migrants died Thursday and several others had to be rescued, along with a suspected trafficker, after a boat capsized on a river on the Croatia-Bosnia border, police said.

Police received a report in the early hours that a boat had capsized on the Sava river near Slavonski Brod and several people were in the water, a police statement said.

Emergency services were immediately sent and "pulled 13 foreign nationals from the cold river one of whom showed no signs of life", it added.

All the rescued people suffering from hypothermia were taken to hospital in Slavonski Brod, some 190 kilometres (118 miles) east of Zagreb.

But two of them died at the hospital's emergency department, police said.

A Bosnian national suspected of trafficking was also being treated in hospital and was under police supervision.

While the nationality of the migrants was not revealed, the state-run HRT television reported they included seven women.

Croatia is a major transit country for undocumented migrants trying to reach Europe on a route through the Balkans.

Nearly 12,000 Europe-bound migrants took the Balkan route during the first eleven months of the year, the EU's border agency Frontex figures showed.

Since 2014, a total of 421 people have been reported dead or missing on the route, according to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM).