Is HDZ, the leading political party in Croatia, trying to cause a famine to eventually "populate Croatia with migrants"? No, that's not true: HDV is not trying to "starve Croatians to death"; it has implemented measures against the African swine fever outbreak, which has affected the country since June 26, 2023. Several documents, laws, and state and European Union-level orders have been issued on how to deal with the outbreak in Croatia, and measures have been enforced accordingly.
The claim appeared in a video (no longer available but archived here) on TikTok by user Katarina4618 on December 25, 2023. It began (translated from Croatian to English by Lead Stories staff):
HDZ wants to cause a famine, so that we would simply die out, drop dead and that they could populate this country with God knows what nations and what kind of people. We cannot allow this.
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Fri Dec 29 08:29:10 2023 UTC)
The Democratic Christian Union (Hrvatska Demokratska Zajednica) is acting to erase the African swine fever outbreak (archived here). There is no vaccine against it; the only way to eradicate it is strict control measures (archived here). Enforced measures included prohibiting the slaughtering of pigs on family farms, which traditionally takes place in late November. The ban lasted from the end of June 2023 to December 21, 2023, when it was partially lifted under specific conditions.
The speaker in the video is Tomislav Pokrovac, one of the protest organizers of pig farmers in Eastern Croatia. Farmers have been protesting (archived here) against the government for banning the slaughtering of pigs (archived here) on family farms. On December 19, 2023, Implementing Regulation (EU) 2023/2894 (archived here), which covered special control measures of African Swine Fever, was published in the Official Journal of the European Union (EU), the official publication for EU legal acts. The regulation came into force on December 21, 2023, along with the Ministry of Agriculture's new decision (archived here) from December 21, 2023.
As per its decision, the Croatian Ministry allowed certain conditions under which pigs could still be slaughtered, such as being raised for personal consumption, slaughtering at the facility where the animals were kept, fulfilling all biosecurity and other prescribed requirements and provided that a veterinarian had previously examined the animals. Meat originating from pigs from Zone III, the area with the highest risk of the disease, slaughtered in approved slaughterhouses, has been allowed on the market for sale exclusively in Croatia as of December 21, 2023.
Lead Stories previously debunked claims about population replacement in Croatia and authorities allegedly evicting Croatian citizens in order to accommodate migrants.
The TikTok account katarina4618 has shared misinformation in the past, such as that Pfizer vaccine contains graphene oxide, that global warming is a lie and that 5G activates pathogens from the COVID-19 vaccines in the human body. Lead Stories also previously debunked a claim by the same account that the HAARP facility is in Petrova Gora in Croatia.
