Poland introduces checks on Slovak border to curb illegal migration
Poland is reinstating temporary checks on the border with Slovakia to prevent an influx of illegal migrants, the Polish interior minister said on Tuesday.
Photo:PAP/Darek Delmanowicz
Mariusz Kamiński announced the measure at a news conference in Warsaw, Polish state news agency PAP reported.
The interior minister said: “The government has made a decision to resume temporary checks on the border with Slovakia. The checks will be introduced at midnight.”
He added that the checks were being introduced “initially for 10 days, but are highly likely to be extended.”
Kamiński told reporters that the checks would be „carried out on vehicles entering Poland, in the least disruptive way possible for our citizens and the citizens of other European Union countries.”
He said the number of attempts to cross illegally into Poland from Slovakia “has increased by almost 1,000 percent” since last year.
Some of the illegal arrivals then reached Germany and other EU countries, according to Kamiński.
He told the media that 551 illegal migrants had been detained in the past two weeks alone, the PAP news agency reported.
Kamiński also said he had spoken to his Czech counterpart Vít Rakušan on Monday and expected that the government in Prague would announce checks on the Slovak border later on Tuesday.
The Polish interior minister said his country was taking “very effective measures” to prevent illegal migration through the Belarus border, which is also the external border of the EU.
Kamiński stated: “We expect that the issue of the Balkan trail [through Slovakia], which affects the whole region, the whole EU, will be addressed in a comprehensive manner and other countries will join our efforts,” the PAP news agency reported.
(pm/gs)
