By Claudio Lavanga

VIDEO

On a video call, 20-year-old Daniel Jackson, the self-proclaimed president of the Free Republic of Verdis, looks the part: He is sitting at a desk with the country's flag to his right and a banner sporting the name of his country behind him.

Instead of a presidential palace, he is speaking from a humble house in Dover, a port city in the south of England. And the Free Republic of Verdis, the country he claims to have founded in 2019, is nothing more than a small strip of uninhabited forest on the border between Croatia and Serbia, more than 1,000 miles away.

And yet, because of a historical border dispute, Jackson, who was born in Australia, claims to be the land's rightful owner and ruler.

Known as "Pocket 3," the strip of forest roughly the size of the Vatican was among several left unclaimed by both countries after the Croatian war of independence ended in 1995.

Jackson now envisions a country that could be a draw for humanitarian aid workers.