The new centre will be located near the border with Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Croatian Interior Minister Vlaho Orepić visited on Friday a newly built border police station and transit centre for accommodation of foreigners in Trilj that will become operational in a few months.
The facility will employ 57 people. The new building of border police station and the transit centre for the accommodation of foreigners are located in the village of Vedrine, on a 4,000-square-metre plot. The construction was financed from the so-called Schengen Facility, and the value of the project is 3.6 million euros. The centre includes two separate buildings.
Minister Orepić said that the border police station and the centre will create much better conditions for the border police to do its job. He added that Croatian border police had increased its capabilities and that the border would be guarded even better than before. “Along the whole border, we have increased technical standards to the highest possible level. So far, we have used 120 million euros from Schengen Facility. These buildings are a proof what should be done to develop public resources”, said the Minister.
The border police station building has five levels and covers more than 2,000 square metres. In addition to rooms allocated for the police station, it also includes accommodation for police officers, a firing range and a garage in the basement. The building consists of 14 offices, ten double rooms with bathrooms, a living room, a kitchen, and a dining room.
The transit centre has four levels and covers over 2,000 square metres. It will be used for temporary accommodation of illegal immigrants. The building consists of a medical area with three offices and four patient rooms, 14 four-bed rooms with bathrooms, eight offices, a dining room and a gym.
Antonijo Vulas, head of the Department for Illegal Migration, said that foreigners would be accommodated in the new centre for the maximum of 72 hours, after which they will either go to the Centre for Foreigners in Ježevo or to their countries of origin. During the stay, they will not have freedom of movement. He added that lately there has been a slight increase in the number of illegal border crossings and in the number of people who are coming from more distant regions. In the last year, the police recorded 27 illegal crossings of the border.
Minister Orepić said that currently there were 650 migrants accommodated in Croatia and that Croatia did not have the problem of migrant crisis like some other countries.
