In the first half of the year, almost 11,000 illegal migrants crossed our borders. This is more than in the whole of last year. Most of them arrived in Slovakia in June. The police have stepped up checks at all border crossings and on trains. Police officers regularly search trains on international routes every day. But they use smugglers more than trains.
According to them, the situation is calmer now than in the winter. They were mostly travelling as ordinary passengers, not in hiding and with a properly bought ticket. They use smugglers more than trains. They try to transport them from Hungary crammed into vans. Some are caught by the police at the border, but most are stopped around Nove Zamky and Levice.
It is about 100 people a day and the majority of them come from Syria and Afghanistan. However, the authorities insist that the migrants are not seeking asylum here. As soon as the police register them, they look for a way to move on. Until they find one, they sleep in parks and housing estates. The state has no plans to set up camps where migrants would be given food and sanitary facilities, as was the case in Kuty in the autumn. Today the borders are open and migrants leave Slovakia within hours. The only solution, according to both the police and the interior minister, is to protect the external Schengen borders.
Source: RTVS
