Friday was the fourth day of the standoff between a large group of migrants and police at Bosnia’s border toward Croatia. But it is the children that lighten the mood of the exhausted opponents and ease the tension with their innocence and playfulness.

The migrants want to continue to follow their dream of a peaceful life in the EU. That is illegal, and the authorities are not letting them through.

But migrant children have turned the no-man’s land between the two groups into a playground. They share candies with reporters and 11-year-old Asal from Teheran had walked over to the officers across and handed them flowers.