Prague, July 22 (CTK) – The Czech Interior Ministry is drafting a crisis plan of coping with the influx of refugees that may exceed all estimates, within which further buildings that could be turned into asylum and detention camps are sought, daily Mlada fronta Dnes (MfD) writes yesterday.
All ministers have been assigned to say which buildings the state does not use and need and that are empty. The first suitable ones managed by the Defence Ministry will be known on Friday, MfD writes.
It writes that there is a number of free military buildings, including former military recreational facilities and barracks.
The Interior Ministry, however, knows that town halls will not like refugees possibly moving to buildings on their territories and that is why it is looking for capacities outside built-up areas, MfD writes.
Interior Minister Milan Chovanec (Social Democrats, CSSD) promised that his ministry will talk to the mayors of the municipalities with possibly suitable buildings for the refugees, MfD writes.
“We must realise that the facilities must be somewhere, we cannot let the refugees running about railway stations. Hungary already now reports dozens of thousands of migrants,” MfD quotes Chovanec as saying.
The Czech government has agreed to accept 1,500 refugees by the end of 2017.
Chovanec recently estimated the number of detained illegal refugees may reach 3,500 this year and twice as many next year.
This year, the Interior Ministry wants to raise immigrant capacities by re-opening a facility in Vysni Lhoty, north Moravia, and the opening of a new one in Balkov, west Bohemia, MfD writes.
The latter is to be discussed by the mayors of the neighbouring communities with representatives from the ministry yesterday.
MfD writes that an empty building of the Justice Ministry in Vidnava, north Moravia, that was spoken about recently as a future possible facility for refugees, is out of question.
“The building is absolutely unsuitable and in a disastrous condition,” Chovanec said.
Referring to its source from the Interior Ministry, MfD writes that most buildings require investments of dozens of millions of crowns.
The Interior Ministry wants to have the capacities ready during next year and to start negotiating with the municipalities concerned at the end of September and in early October, MfD writes.
The Czechs’ fear of refugees provokes various hoaxes on the social networks. A 37-year woman from south Bohemia faces prosecution over scaremongering about immigrants and she may be sentenced up to two years.
She put on Facebook a false story about a group of Arab refugees who allegedly cut the throats of farm animals close to the Austrian border and that the police detained 90 immigrants in this connection.
($1=24.908 crowns)
