Prague, July 13 (CTK) – The Czech Foreigner Police detained 81 illegal migrants on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, which is the highest number detained over a weekend this year, their spokeswoman Katerina Rendlova told CTK yesterday.
In the first half of the year, the police detained a total of 3003 illegal migrants, or 48 percent more than during the same period last year, Rendlova said.
Interior Minister Milan Chovanec (Social Democrats, CSSD) demands additional money from the state for his ministry to tackle the impact of the refugee crisis.
He demands an extra 250 million crowns this year and one billion in 2016, Czech Television and the iDnes.cz server reported yesterday.
“We demand not only and increase of the staff dealing with refugees, but also of the police officers so that police stations be established near the facilities [for asylum seekers],” CT and iDnes.cz quoted Chovanec as saying before the cabinet meeting.
The number of uncovered migrants has been steadily rising.
A total of 370 migrants have been detained since June 17 when the police toughened the system of checks.
A total of 131 migrants were detained last week alone, raising the daily average to 18.
For example, 17 migrants, including children, were detained in a train crossing the Pardubice Region, east Bohemia, last Thursday.
Last week, Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka (CSSD) said in the Chamber of Deputies that the government keeps control of the security situation in connection of the current migration wave.
“We have been detaining the migrants who entered the Czech Republic illegally, and we proceed in accordance with the relevant legislation,” Sobotka said.
Either the migrants apply for Czech asylum and Prague launches their asylum proceedings, or, if they entered the EU in another country, the Czech authorities return them abroad.
The numbers of detained migrants has been constantly the highest in south Moravia, followed by the north Bohemian centre Usti nad Labem and Prague, Rendlova said.
They are most often the nationals of Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, she said.
($1=24.238 crowns)
