Hermanova Hut, West Bohemia, July 12 (CTK) – The migrants from Iraq whom the Czech police detained in a van on the D5 motorway near Hermanova Hut on Monday should return to Hungary since they all sought asylum there, foreigner police spokeswoman Katerina Rendlova told CTK on Tuesday.
“All persons will be placed in the facility for foreigners in Bela Jezova (central Bohemia). Two men will be sent to the centre in Drahonice (north Bohemia). Subsequently, they will be transferred back to Hungary within the Dublin proceedings,” Rendlova said.
The police checked a white van with a British number plate and a Romanian driver, heading for the Rozvadov Czech-German border crossing, on the D5 motorway on Monday morning.
They found nine men, eight women and 14 children, the youngest of which was only nine months old, in the van’s cargo space. Most of them were members of four families, while two men and one woman were travelling separately.
Both the migrants and the driver were detained.
According to the Interior Ministry’s information, the police detained a total of 3,634 migrants in the Czech Republic from June 17, 2015 until July 11, 2016.
A total of 132 migrants are staying in the country’s three detention centres in Bela pod Bezdezem, Vysni Lhoty, north Moravia, and Drahonice. Their total capacity is more than 1000 beds.
A similarly strong group of migrants was detained in the Plzen Region at the end of April. A Bulgarian van was transporting 11 men, five women and ten children aged half a year to 15. The people were of Afghanistan nationality.
The driver and his fellow traveller fled.
In June the Plzen Regional Court tightened the punishment of two Hungarian people smugglers who were detained with the biggest group of migrants in the region, or 76 migrants from Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The regional court raised the 18 month prison sentences given to the two men in March to three years in June.
