Brno, Sept 7 (CTK) – Most of the 280 Syrians who reached the Czech Republic in two groups on trains last week stay in local refugee centres and will be probably handed over to the Austrian or Slovak police, Foreigner Police spokeswoman Katerina Rendlova told CTK Monday, adding that 127 refugees have been released.
The released Syrians are those who previously applied for asylum in Hungary. They have probably set off for Germany, Rendlova said.
The first of the two large groups, which was uncovered travelling on trains from Austria and Slovakia in the night to Tuesday, was comprised of 214 refugees, 61 of whom have been released by the Czech police.
The rest stay in Czech refugee facilities. They will be probably expelled from the Czech Republic and handed over to Austria or Slovakia.
The other group, which was uncovered arriving from Slovakia on Thursday, consisted of 66 Syrians. All of them have been released.
The Czech authorities informed the released refugees that they have to leave the Czech Republic in seven days. They should return to Hungary where they applied for asylum.
Most of them, nevertheless, have gone to Germany, Rendlova said.
She said the Foreigner Police detained about 190 refugees last weekend.
A total of about 2,658 refugees were detained in the past three months, out of whom 60 Syrians have applied for Czech asylum. The rest want to continue their way to Germany.
The situation is turbulent in Hungary, where there are thousands of Syrian refugees.
Czech Interior Minister Milan Chovanec said a couple of days ago that the wave of refugees is yet to culminate in the Czech Republic.
Last week, the police detained a total of 519 refugees, far more than in the preceding week. Still this is no trend of an intensifying influx of refugees because the number is exceptionally high due to the above 208-strong group of detained Syrian refugees, Rendlova said.
Apart from the Syrians, who arrived on trains, further illegal immigrants were uncovered mainly in vans on roads.
In reaction to Hungary’s accelerated procedure towards refugees, the Czech police have started to release refugees from detention centres, Rendlova said.
The police have also arrested eight suspected people smugglers. Three of them are Hungarians, three Swedes, one is a Turk, one Romanian and one German.
They face up to 12 years in prison if found guilty of organising an illegal crossing of the border.
There have been 1,104 refugees in the Czech refugee detention centres in Bela pod Bezdezem, central Bohemia, Zastavka u Brna, south Moravia, and Vysni Lhoty, north Moravia, as from Monday, and 264 beds are still available, the Interior Ministry writes on a new website it has launched with the aim to provide information related to the refugee wave.
