Last weekend, police officers at the Koper Police Directorate dealt with 86 persons who had illegally entered Slovenia. The Celje Police Directorate reported that an Afghan national who had illegally entered Slovenia was traced in Trlično around midday. After completing the procedures, he was placed in an asylum centre. Police officers from the police station Podlehnik dealt with three Afghan nationals in the morning, and police officers from the police station Ormož dealt with three Syrian nationals in the afternoon, all of whom had applied for international protection.
The Slovenian Press Agency reports that the number of illegal border crossings in Croatia has increased by 44.7 percent this year compared to last year, with Croatian police attributing the higher number of illegal border crossings to the increased migration pressure on the border with Bosnia and Herzegovina. “While monitoring the situation related to irregular migration on the so-called Balkan route, we have observed an increase in the number of migrants along the entire route in recent months. Currently, the route leading through North Macedonia to Serbia and onwards to Hungary and Austria is under the greatest pressure,” the Croatian ministry explained to the media outlet “Večernji list” recently. They added that they are currently seeing slightly less pressure on the border with Bosnia and Herzegovina, but that Croatia expects the trend of increased attempts to cross illegally into Croatia at this border to continue, according to the analyses that have been carried out in the past years.
In the first seven months of this year, the Croatian police dealt with 13,229 cases of illegal border crossings, including 5,169 in July and August. Between January and July last year, 9,141 such cases were recorded. From the beginning of this year until the 18th of August, 4,601 persons expressed their intention to apply for international protection. Of these, only 366 remained in Croatia by the 18th of August, while 4,235 had already left the country, the ministry added. “This means that there is an organised manipulation happening, whereby these persons request asylum and then flee to their desired countries via Slovenia, which is used by smugglers and migrants to circumvent the rules of the European Union and continue their illegal movement, or the so-called secondary migration,” they explained. In the first seven months of this year, Slovenian police dealt with just over 8,200 foreigners who crossed the border illegally. This is an 80 percent increase compared to the same period last year, the Slovenian Press Agency also reports.
Opinions are divided on whether the removal of the fence is to blame for the increase in illegal migration
The removal of the wire fence at the southern border started on the 15th of July. So far, it has only been removed in the area of the Karlovac Police Directorate, at the Vivodina and Krmačina border crossing points towards the Kašt and Radovica border crossing points, which in Slovenia fall under the Metlika Police Directorate. In other areas bordering Slovenia, the ministry pointed out, the removal of the wire fences has not started yet. They added that the Slovenian government had announced that it would take five months to remove the fence.
Last Friday, Minister of the Interior, Tatjana Bobnar, dismissed the claims of Slovenian Democratic Party (Slovenska demokratska stranka – SDS) MPs about a large number of migrants as a consequence of the removal of the border wire as political manipulations. Namely, on the television show “24ur Zvečer,” SDS MP Branko Grims recently pointed out the human rights of Slovenian children, women, and all citizens who live near the border, who allegedly have backyards full of migrants. Bobnar is facing the risk of being impeached for knowingly opening the borders to illegal migrants and thus exposing the citizens to danger.
Sara Kovač
