STA, 29 July 2020 - Two young Belarusians pulled over by the police near Semič close to the border with Croatia on Tuesday evening were found to be carrying a total of ten Moroccans in two vehicles with Polish license plates in what is but the latest in a series of similar incidents reported by the police.
A press release from the Novo Mesto Police Department said the Moroccans had entered Slovenia illegally.
The two Belarusians, both aged 21, will be brought before an investigating judge, while proceedings involving the migrants are still ongoing.
Slovenian police handled 4,993 attempts at crossing the border illegally from January to the end of June, a decrease of 12.4% compared with the same period last year, a fall blamed on the pandemic loockdown and border restrictions.
The cases were up in May to 903 and surged to 1,689 in June, which compares to 1,200 in the same peak month last year.
More than three out of four illegal migrants handled by the police in the first half of the year were citizens of Morocco, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
A total of 1,766 migrants expressed an intention to seek asylum in Slovenia, while Slovenian police returned 3,118 foreigners to foreign law enforcement authorities, 3,100 of them to Croatia's.
