STA, 16 October 2019 - The Slovenian police recorded a drop in illegal migration in September, however the number of illegal border crossings in the first nine months of the year is still 70.5% above last year's figure.
Since the beginning of the year, police handled 11,786 cases of people crossing into the country illegally, which compares to 6,911 in the first nine months of last year.
More than 3,000 of them were from Pakistan, with roughly 1,600 from Algeria and 1,300 from Afghanistan, data from the police show.
The number of migrants seeking asylum has been increasing as well. As many as 3,856 asked for international protection in the eight months to the end of August, which is more than in the whole 2018.
After being accommodated in asylum centres, the migrants often continue on their way to their chosen destination countries. Most of those are citizens of Algeria.
The number of third-country citizens turned away at the border rose by almost 14% year-on-year to 3,397 in the first nine months of the year. Most of these were denied entry at the border with Croatia.
Slovenia returned a total of 8,050 illegal migrants to foreign law enforcement authorities in the first nine months of the year, most of them (7,956) to Croatia.
In the same period, 491 were returned to Slovenian authorities, most of them (213) by Italy. In the same period last year 436 migrants were returned to Slovenia.
