ZAGREB, June 1 (Xinhua) -- A man suspected of smuggling illegal migrants was arrested on Friday, Croatian interior minister Davor Bozinovic announced.

The man was arrested near a village in Croatia's Zadar county where he escaped on Wednesday night after police shot at the van he was driving.

He was driving 29 illegal migrants from Iraq and Afghanistan. A total of 15 of the migrants were children, two of whom were injured by police fire.

One of the two children who were shot were released from hospital on Friday, while the other was transferred to a hospital in Croatia's capital Zagreb.

All migrants in the van requested asylum in Croatia.

Daily newspaper Jutarnji list reported on Friday that Croatian police had arrested another refugee smuggler on Thursday in Zagreb. Police found 11 migrants from Afghanistan in his van.

In 2015 and 2016, Croatia was part of the so-called Balkan route along which hundreds of thousands migrants flowed from Greece via Macedonia, Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia into Austria and further north.