Sometimes hatred travels by speedboat. On the island of Hvar, Croatian police prevented a planned attack by a fan group on two Serbian seasonal workers staying at a hotel. The target wasn't rival fans, nor was there any incident on a pitch - just two people who'd come to work the summer in someone else's place.

The details reveal how organized the intent was. On Thursday afternoon, police patrols spotted two vehicles with 14 people near the hotel. On searching them, they found wooden and telescopic batons and black balaclavas, hidden under jackets and towels, in the floors and trunks of the vehicles. Twelve of them had come by speedboat from Trogir and Kastela to a secluded docking point, where two more were waiting with vehicles.

All 14 arrested are Croatian citizens, born between 1993 and 2008 - meaning there were teenagers among them. Four, aged 18 to 33, were detained on a criminal complaint for plotting an attack. The motive? That the two workers are from Serbia. Nothing more than that.

This is a story the Balkans understand all too well. Hatred packaged in fan colors, aimed not at someone who "did something," but at someone who's "from there." Two people came to wash dishes or serve coffee, and were nearly beaten with batons just because of a passport. How many times will we pretend these are "incidents," when the pattern is always the same - and when the victim is always the one who works the hardest and defends himself the least?