Croatia has opened its border with Serbia, removing one of the bottlenecks for thousands of stranded migrants trying to make their way north.

About 3,000 people had been stuck in cold and wet weather in the Serbian border village of Berkasovo, after Croatia moved to curb new arrivals.

The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) had described condition there as "dire".

Many remain stranded near the Croatia-Slovenia border. The Balkan route has been squeezed by restrictions.

Hundreds of thousands of migrants, many from Syria, Africa and Afghanistan, have been making their way from Turkey to the Balkans in recent months, in a bid to reach Germany, Sweden and other EU states.

"Everybody who was here has gone through," an eyewitness at the Berkasovo crossing told AFP news agency late on Monday.

Buses are waiting on the Croatian side of the border to take migrants to a nearby reception centre, Croatian media say.

Earlier, UNHCR spokeswoman Melita Sunjic told the BBC the migrants had been living in "dire" conditions in Serbia.

"We have a lot of small children. We have disabled people, we have people who got sick on the road," she said.

"This is not a place for people, they can't sleep - they can just stand upright in the mud. We have to find another solution."

Croatia moved to limit the flow of migrants at the weekend, when Hungary closed its southern border and Slovenia announced its own restrictions, fuelling fears that migrants could get stuck in Croatia.

BBC