Truck Carrying Migrants Crashes in Holešovice After Police Chase

The rumble of a helicopter woke up many citizens in the capital’s Holešovice district early on Thursday morning.

Czech Police are currently searching for the driver of a truck that avoided a police check and went on to crash. The driver fled the vehicle together with a group of mainly Syrian migrants, 29 of whom have thus far been detained by the Czech Foreign Police.

“At about the 4th kilometer of the D1, the Central Bohemian traffic police wanted to check a van going to Prague. However, the driver fled away from the crime scene. Almost 30 other people ran out of the vehicle with him,” said Richard Hrdina,  spokesman for the Prague police.

“We managed to detain 29 foreigners, who come mainly from Syria. They were transferred to the headquarters of the foreigner police, which took over the case and there will be a standard investigation,” Hrdina added.

The two Turkish drivers of the truck told Czech authorities they had no idea the migrants had been in their vehicle and that they were just transporting tiles.

In 2020, the police detained 7,093 foreigners who were in the Czech Republic illegally, an increase of almost 25 percent compared to 2019.

According to Milan Majer, the director of the foreign police, the increase was related to migrants violating the Ministry of Health’s regulations restricting the stay of foreigners due to COVID-19.

The police also detained 486 refugees attempting to travel to other countries through the Czech Republic, 266 more than in 2019. Most refugees were from Afghanistan, Syria, or Morocco.

The highest number of illegal migrants discovered in the Czech Republic was in 2015, during the European migration crisis, when 8,563 people were found.