ZAGREB, August 14, 2018 – Eight migrants from Afghanistan, including six children, were injured in a car crash near Koper, Slovenia on Tuesday and the driver, a Croatian national, was arrested for trafficking in humans.
Koper police said the accident occurred shortly before 3 a.m. when the 24-year-old Croat lost control of the car, which swerved off the road and ended up on its roof. The injured migrants were taken to hospital, while the driver was placed in detention on suspicion of trafficking in humans.
According to Slovenian police, about 5,000 illegal migrants have entered the country this year, many using the new Balkan route, from western Bosnia and Herzegovina via Croatia, mainly along Slovenia’s border with Croatia’s Karlovac and Istria counties.
Although 5,000 migrants entered Slovenia in the first seven and a half months of this year, as against 2,000 throughout 2017, there is no reason for concern that another big migrant crisis might occur, said Peter Skerbis, head of the Slovenian police migration division.
There are more illegal crossings at this time of year because of the weather as well as broader circumstances on the traditional migration routes across the Mediterranean, he told POP-TV.
He said Slovenian police had very good cooperation with Croatian authorities in preventing illegal migration and that cooperation in the return of caught illegal migrants was fair, but that returning them to other countries in the region was problematic.
