ISTRIA – “The story immediately struck me as a bit strange”. The Istrian dialect translates well the confusion of Renato (fancy name), manager of a farm in Croatian Istria, who a month later saw four workers of Nepalese origin vanish into thin air on a flight from Katmandu to Zagreb. Despite being entitled to a one-year work visa, the group has disbanded and ended up who knows where. According to him, they left in the apartment the clothes that had been bought for him to work in the fields. “We also went to the police to file a missing persons report – according to Renato – but we were told it doesn’t matter, these people are no longer their problem.”
The reason is that there is a shortage of workers
The story has many details, some clear, others a bit more nebulous. What we do know is that it is part of the system that can produce the Balkan route. Getting to Europe is not always a matter of thousands of kilometers on foot. Some countries issue visas for Balkan countries. This is the case, for example, in Cuba, from where you leave for Belgrade, perhaps via Moscow. Recently, the shortage of agricultural labor in Istria has become noticeable and many companies are resorting to seasonal workers, sometimes even from very far away, as in the case of Nepal.
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As 2021 draws to a close, Renato is put in touch with Nepali citizens thanks to a consulting agency called Issa Planinc. The company headquarters is in Lissa (Vis), an island in the middle of the Adriatic Sea and famous for the Italian defeat during the III. War of Independence. From 47 on Via Vladimiro Nazor (a beautiful building with a lot of sea views), the agency ensures that the four Nepalese end up in Croatia. “We picked them up in Zagreb,” says Renato, “after paying 300 euros each for them to arrive. They should be here on January 15th, they landed in early April”. According to Renato, it is the Lissa agency itself that provides accurate information about the management. “We had to keep the passports,” he emphasizes. The group (the oldest was 42, the youngest 21) gets an apartment and a 40-hour job per week. “From Monday to Friday, eight hours a day, around 700 euros a month”. The four are registered on April 21st and start working. The first salary credited on May 13 is counted from day one to April 30. “They protested because they didn’t know the mechanism by which the salary is counted to the month and not to the consecutive days – explains Renato – but then we clarified that and gave them more money, about 800 kuna, to buy groceries to be able to meet the next salary”.
Not only Istria, not only Renato
Another day in these last weeks they ask to go to Rijeka. The family takes them away, lets them drive, after about half an hour they come back and get back in the car. “Maybe they met a fellow countryman,” Renato suspects. Friday the 20th is the last day they will be seen. “Right after that it was the weekend and we didn’t work. So we expected her again on Monday”. On this day the property arrives in the village to be loaded and taken to the fields. “There was no one there, it vanished into thin air. They left behind two bags and some clothing. Now Renato has two options. “Either the agency gets my money back,” he says, “or they replace the four refugees with four others who are already in Croatia. Maybe I’d like to know how they’re doing too.” Apparently, according to his account, the agency also receives money from people, not just from the future employer. “One of them sold us the story that he should give the agency a year’s salary back, but I don’t know how true that really is.” Renato would not be the only Istrian entrepreneur to fall victim to this situation. “I have friends in horticulture, but also in the wine sector. Once two people gave up after two days, another lasted about a week. Even in Dalmatia they tell me it happens but I have no proof.”