STA, 17 January 2022 - Slovenian police recorded 10,067 attempts at illegal border crossing last year, a decrease of 31.2% on the year before. Asylum applications, however, rose substantially, official police statistics show.
While the number of migrants from Pakistan, Morocco and Bangladesh, among the top four source countries last year, dropped substantially, there were slightly more migrants from Afghanistan, which became the biggest source country with 3,208 migrants registered.
The number of migrants from Turkey more than doubled to 737. There was also a slight increase in migrants from Iran, of whom there were 475, and Kosovo, from 168 to 239.
Slovenia has long been mostly a transit country, but in recent years applications for international protection have started increasing as well, rising by 41% last year to 5,651.
Almost half the applicants were from Afghanistan, followed by Pakistan, Turkey, Iran and Iraq. The report says almost all Afghans submit asylum applications.
Despite requesting asylum, however, the vast majority of migrants leave the country before their applications have been processed.
"After they are accommodated in asylum facilities, most of them leave of their own accord and continue their journey to their actual destination countries," the police report says.
Another major change compared to 2020 is the number of persons returned to foreign law enforcement, which declined from more than 10,000 to just under 4,000. The vast majority, 3,858, were returned to Croatia.
