Czech customs officers found five undocumented foreigners claiming to have come from Afghanistan in a North Macedonian lorry during a regular check of lorries in Brno-Slatina on Thursday.

The North Macedonian lorry driver said he had not known about the foreigners hiding inside. “Customs authority officers were checking a North Macedonian lorry transporting car parts to the Czech Republic from Poland this afternoon.

The security seal of the cargo space was in order at first sight and corresponded to the documents, but a closer look revealed that it had probably been broken and repaired carefully,” South Moravian Customs Authority spokeswoman Lada Temnakova said. 

Germany has reported an increase in the number of illegal migrants entering the country from the Czech Republic. According to data released by the German Interior Ministry the police intercepted over 3,900 illegal migrants trying to cross the border from the Czech Republic between January and November 2018, an increase of 10.8 percent as compared to the previous year.

According to the Czech Interior Ministry the statistics are misleading, due to the fact that the numbers include persons who had already been granted asylum in Germany and who failed to produce proof of this after making a brief trip across the border. Interior Minister Jan Hamáček told journalists the increase in the given period was by 19 persons, rather than close to 400, as the German statistics suggest.

Author: red