STA, 11 December 2021 - A 10-year-old Turkish girl who went missing after she fell into the swollen Dragonja on the Slovenian-Croatian border on Thursday evening and got swept downstream as her mother was carrying her on her shoulders across the river, was found dead around noon today.

The girl was found dead on the Croatian side of the river by Croatian police officers and divers of the Slovenian Armed Forces, the Koper Police Department has told the STA.

The search effort that started late on Thursday also involved professional and volunteer Slovenian fire-fighters, police dog handlers and members of the national underwater rescue service.

Officers of the maritime police unit and members of the Maritime Administration searched the mouth of the river and the surrounding sea, and the campaign also included several rescue teams on the Croatian side of the river.

The unfortunate girl fell into the cold and swollen river as her 47-year-old mother was trying to cross it to enter Slovenia, carrying her on her shoulders.

While the woman was saved by Slovenian police officers with the help of a citizen who had called the police, the girl was swept downstream.

The woman was found to be a Turkish national. Two of her children, aged 18 and 5, were already on the Slovenian side, while another child, aged 13, was still on the Croatian side. As the situation took place on the border line, they were all returned to Croatia.

This is the second death of a migrant in the area lately, as a 31-year-old national of Bangladesh was found dead in the Dragonja valley last Saturday, with initial information indicating hypothermia as the cause of death.

STA, 10 December 2021 - The police rescued a 47-year-old Turkish woman from the Dragonja River on Thursday evening, as she was trying to cross it to enter Slovenia, carrying on her shoulders her 10-year-old daughter, who fell into the water and was swept downstream. Although a rescue mission was launched immediately, the child has not been found yet.

The Koper Police Department announced on Friday that somebody noticed a group of people on Thursday evening, who were trying to swim across the Dragonja River and cross the border between Croatia and Slovenia illegally.

Police officers from Piran were dispatched to the scene, and upon arrival, they noticed a woman holding on to a tree in the middle of the river. An officer from Croatia had already attempted to help her, but due to the raging water, neither of them could make it back to the riverbank.

Slovenian officers joined the rescue attempt and managed to get the Croatian officer and the woman out of the water, with the help of the citizen who called the police and was still present at the scene, and a ladder brought from the Croatian side.

The woman was found to be a 47-year-old Turkish national. Two of her children, aged 18 and 5, were already on the Slovenian side, while her third child, aged 13, was still on the Croatian side. As the whole situation took place at the border line, they were all returned to Croatia.

During the subsequent proceedings, the police found that the woman had another child on her shoulders while crossing the river, a 10-year-old girl who fell into the water and was swept away by the river.

Seven police officers, two police dog handlers and 20 firefighters searched the riverside area during the night but did not manage to find the child. The search continues today.

STA, 19 November 2021 - The Maribor criminal police have tracked down an international criminal gang involved in illegal migration in what was a lengthy international investigation. A number of suspects were arrested and detained in Slovenia, whereas the gang's leader was caught in Poland.

The investigation, which included criminal police forces from Slovenia, Austria, Poland and Hungary and was coordinated by Slovenian investigators, uncovered an illegal migration route running from Croatia or Hungary to Austria or Italy with Slovenia being a nexus point.

The investigation was launched when the police started investigating last year's arrival of a Tunisian citizen in Slovenia. The individual resided in the Maribor area without a residence permit, said the Maribor Police Department on Friday.

The Tunisian organised a small-scale migrant smuggling operation already in 2019. The police then established reasonable grounds to suspect that the foreigner returned to Slovenia to continue with this unlawful activity, so covert investigative measures were launched against him.

The investigation established that the Tunisian contracted a number of drivers, citizens of Poland, Ukraine, Pakistan and Tunisia, to help him smuggle migrants.

He was the leader of the gang, which carried out at least ten smuggling operations during the investigation. A minimum of 58 foreigners from Iraq, Pakistan and China were brought to Slovenia by the gang members.

The foreigners were required to pay some EUR 5,500 per person to get to the EU, meaning the criminal organisation obtained at least EUR 319,000 in unlawful financial gain from migrant smuggling.

The five gang members that were caught in Slovenia have been brought before investigating judges. All of them are remanded in custody.

The gang leader meanwhile fled Slovenia and was caught in Poland under a European arrest warrant. Another two gang members, Syrian citizens who have been residing in Slovenia, were arrested in the Maribor area on Thursday.

Following house searches and other activities carried out in line with the criminal procedure act, criminal charges will be brought against them, the police said.

The offence of illegally transporting foreigners in a criminal organisation is punishable by three to 15 years in prison and a fine.

STA, 19 August 2021 - Police have uncovered a criminal ring that has been smuggling migrants from Bosnia via Croatia and Slovenia to Italy. According to the Koper Police Department, the ring consisted of six members - four Slovenians, one Kosovo citizens and another of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

A lengthy criminal investigation, conducted by investigators from the Koper Police Department in cooperation with Italian and Croatian police forces, was completed on 4 August.

During the investigation, the criminal ring either attempted to smuggle or successfully smuggled at least 17 citizens of Bangladesh, Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan into Italy via Slovenia.

The members, aged between 20 and 43, used hired vans to smuggle migrants, and also delivered them food, drinks and fresh clothes. The police estimate that the group earned between EUR 68,000 and 85,000, but the exact amount was difficult to determine.

The cost of smuggling from Bosnia to Italy was between EUR 4,000 and 5,000 per person, and the cost of transport from the Croatian border through Slovenia to Italy was around EUR 350 per person.

One of the suspects was arrested by Italian authorities after fleeing from Italian police patrols. After the arrest, he was found to be a Kosovo citizen using forged documents.

In the final phase of the investigation, Slovenian police officers carried out two house searches in the Ljubljana area. They arrested a 31-year-old Slovenian, and a 33-year-old Bosnian citizen with a prior conviction.

The two suspects have been remanded in custody in Koper for risk of repeating the crimes, while the other four will be free during the criminal procedure, Dejan Grandič, deputy head of Koper criminal police, explained for the STA.

The suspects face fines and prison sentences ranging from three to 15 years.

In the first seven months of the year Slovenian police recorded 4,495 illegal border crossings, down by just over 40% year-on-year.

Grandič said fewer cases of smuggling illegal migrants had been recorded this year in the area policed by the Koper Police Department, south-west, while the number of illegal migrants had increased.

The Police Department processed 2,068 migrants entering illegally from Croatia until the end of July this year, up almost 11% from the same period last year.

"There is also more cases when individuals cross the green border, helping themselves with navigation," said Grandič.

The bulk of illegal migrants in the Koper police area this year have been citizens of Afghanistan (621), Pakistan (465), Bangladesh (216) and Turkey (188).

As many as 967 illegal migrants have been sent back to foreign law enforcement, the bulk to Croatia, while there has also been in a rise in migrants expressing an intent to ask for international protection, especially Afghan citizens.

According to Grandič, organisers of illegal migrations usually already have a criminal record, while there are different reasons why people decide to transport illegal migrants, he explained. "They can be either people at the bottom of the social ladder, jobless, addicts, younger people who see an opportunity to earn a quick buck ..."

STA, 26 January 201 - Two Italians who crashed their car packed with illegal migrants into a police car in September last year have been sentenced to more than two years in prison, after which they will be expelled from the country.

The newspapers Delo, Dnevnik and Slovenske Novice report that Francesco Mandielo, 29, and Salvatore Mascolo, 23, both from Naples, were sentenced to two years and nine months and two years and one month, respectively, by the Ljubljana District Court.

They were both also given a fine of two thousand euro and a ban on re-entering the country for four years as judge Martin Jančar meted out the sentence as proposed by the prosecution, which was the mildest possible and took into account mitigating circumstances.

"The court accepts the defence counsel's argument that the defendants are the smallest wheels in the machinery of organised illegal migration, but it's these small wheels that allow the whole wheelwork to run," the judge was quoted as saying by Dnevnik. He said economic distress did not justify crime.

The pair pleaded guilty, asking for mercy. Their lawyers argued that the pair were but the final link in the chain of a criminal ring smuggling migrants from Bosnia-Herzegovina to Italy.

The pair picked up six migrants - five from Bangladesh and one from Pakistan - on the Slovenian-Croatian border, putting four of them on the back seats and two in the boot.

A police patrol tried to pull them over near Ivančna Gorica, but Mandielo, attempting to avoid the police first scraped the car against the guard rail on the exit from the motorway, and then after several sharp manoeuvres bumped into the police vehicle behind.

The impact left the police officers inside lightly injured.

According to the reports, the migrants paid EUR 4,000 each to be transported from Velika Kladuša in Bosnia-Herzegovina to Italy to the organiser, allegedly a Pakistani.

STA, 21 September 2020 - Foreign Minister Anže Logar, who attended a session of the Foreign Affairs Council in Brussels on Monday, told reporters after the session that the EU's new migration pact was eagerly anticipated and that Slovenia would continue to oppose mandatory distribution of migrants, which the country made clear in June.

"We are anxious to see the proposed package, but it is difficult to comment on individual solutions before it is unveiled. We know roughly which way the solutions will go, but this is a very complex matter and the changes are very comprehensive, so I do not dare to comment any further at this point," Logar said after the ministerial, responding to a journalist question about whether Slovenia was happy with the planed solutions.

Seven EU members, including Slovenia, addressed a letter to the European Commission in June, expressing their resolute opposition to compulsory redistribution of migrants among EU member states. The letter was signed by Slovenia, all four Visegrad countries - Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, as well as Estonia and Latvia.

Logar said today the letter made Slovenia's views very clear. "I think the arguments that Slovenia will use in this debate will go along those lines in the future as well," he said.

Asked whether Slovenia would support the new pact, he said that it was impossible to say exactly which way the debate would go at this point.

The new migration pact that the Commission will unveil on Wednesday is expected to be based on a mechanism of obligatory solidarity, which is to include transferring migrants in close connection with returning illegal migrants.

The new approach is said to be more flexible than the solutions which have been on the table so far and which member states failed to find common ground on.

The initiator of the new pact, European Commissioner for Home Affairs Ylva Johansson, has said that all 27 members states are ready to make concessions.

Logar agrees that a compromise will be found but he stresses it will be within the frameworks of what countries find acceptable.

The Slovenian foreign minister noted this package would be discussed during the German-Portuguese-Slovenian presidency. If no agreement is reached during Portugal's stint, Slovenia will lead the debate, so Logar discussed the matter today with his German counterpart, and the French foreign minister in Paris on Sunday.

Asked about the upcoming report on the rule of law in EU countries, which the Commission is to release on 30 September, Logar said Slovenia was looking forward to the debate on the rule of law and would take active part in it, so that the bloc would have a credible, transparent and fair overview of the situation.

The report will open a dialogue and a quest for a model that would offer an overview of the situation in EU countries in the future as well, Logar said in an on-line press conference.

He added the EU's drawing up the report was a smart way of overcoming the impasse following alleged violations of the rule of law in Poland and Hungary.

Logar also held courtesy meetings with Executive Vice President of the European Commission Frans Timmermans and European Commissioner for the Environment Virginijus Sinkevičius. He presented them Slovenia's priorities for the upcoming EU presidency from green technologies to water diplomacy.

STA, 25 August 2020 - A migrants’ rights advocacy group staged a rally in front of the Centre for Aliens in Postojna (Center za tujce) on Tuesday, claiming that conditions at the centre were reminiscent of a concentration camp and that the rights of foreigners kept there were being violated. The police has rejected the accusations.

The group, called Taskforce for Asylum, spoke on behalf of what were around 50 protestors, saying that grave human rights violations were occurring at the centre.

"You can find yourself here if a you are a foreigner and did not bring your residence documents in order in time, and you can stay locked up by up to a year, often without any contact to the outside world or the chance of an appeal," the group said.

In prison people at least know why they are locked up, can get a lawyer and know when they will be released, while in Postojna they are left at the mercy of a single inspector. Suicide attempts are an everyday affair, the Taskforce for Asylum said.

The group claims that "this disgraceful camp" was further expanded in recent months, with the state starting to send asylum seekers there and returning them to Croatian police from there.

It said one facility was a large warehouse with iron bars that now houses asylum seekers, who are left without basic necessities and kept waiting for a decision for weeks and months.

The foreigners handled this way are resisting and are also trying to get the attention of the public with hunger strikes, the Taskforce for Asylum said.

The protesters demanded today that "this concentration camp" be closed immediately and that the refoulement of migrants to Croatia stop.

The police rejected all the accusations, saying all procedures were conducted in line with national and European legislation and international conventions.

According to the police, it is not true that foreigners were sent to the centre without formal decisions. If there are reservations for sending back an individual, this is taken into consideration and the procedure is halted.

Legal protection is provided for all cases, there is also access to a doctor and psychosocial support, the police told the STA.

It also rejected claims of a hunger strike being under way. The foreigners expressed their discontent in different ways, including by occasionally declining food. Thus there was a situation a few days ago where one of the departments rejected dinner in protest over movement restrictions, the police added.

While also rejecting claims food was being supplied through window bars, the police dismissed accusations regarding overcrowded conditions.

There are presently 93 foreigners at the centre, which has capacity for 180. 68 of those currently there are subject to international protection procedures, while 25 are in the process of being returned.

STA, 9 July 2020 - After restrictions imposed to contain the Covid-19 pandemic suppressed illegal migration into Slovenia, police have recorded a renewed steep rise in the numbers trying to cross the border illegally.

Police handled 4,993 instances of illegal border crossing between 1 January and 30 June, a decrease of 12.4% compared to the same period last year, but a renewed upward trend was detected recently.

However, presenting more detailed data at Wednesday's session of the parliamentary Home Affairs Committee, Interior Ministry State secretary Franc Kangler said the six-month statistics in fact reflected the situation in three months only, as there was little illegal migration when the border was closed.

Deputy Police Commissioner Tomaž Pečjak said that by Wednesday morning 5,514 attempted to enter the country illegally, up from 5,300 only two days earlier.

This means that more than one percentage point of the "deficit" compared with the same period last year has been offset in a matter of two days, said Pečjak.

The police recorded 1,755 instances of illegal crossing in June, which compares to 1,200 in the same peak month last year, with Pečjak commenting that if the trend continued the 2,000 mark will be crossed in July.

Committee chair Branko Grims (SDS) voiced concern about the "drastic" increase in illegal migrants, projecting that if the trend continued the total for the year would hit or even surpass 20,000.

Given the increase, there is a shortage of 700 police officers, Kangler said, urging the committee to call on the government to retable the proposal to invoke a special article of the defence act that would give soldiers police powers to secure the border.

The committee responded to his appeal by backing the corresponding resolution despite criticism from the opposition.

Grims said that the committee also backed by eight votes in favour and none against the proposal to recommend to the government to withdraw from the global compact for migration.

Arguing that the agreement was but a dead letter, Grims said that by withdrawing from it Slovenia would give a clear signal to illegal migrants that it did not want to be a destination country.

The police report shows that there has been a substantial increase in the number of Moroccans in January-June, with 1,281 attempting to enter the country illegally in the first half of the year.

Along with the citizens of Pakistan (1,264) and Afghanistan (719), Moroccans are involved in more than three out of four instances of illegal crossing, a police report shows.

The number of those expressing the intention to seek asylum decreased by almost 20% year-on-year to 1,766 as of the end of June, which the police said was because of a decline in the number of Algerians, who found an alternative route into Europe.

The most of those who expressed their intention to ask for international protection were Moroccan nationals (761), followed by Afghans (250) and Algerians (226).

Since Morocco would not repatriate its citizens, police have had difficulty returning those whose asylum applications have been rejected.

Another issue pointed out in the report is secondary migration when applicants leave the country during or after the asylum procedure and file a new request in another country if they are apprehended there.

The main point of entry for illegal migrants on the internal border remains Italy.

The number of foreigners found to have entered Slovenia without proper documents or permits across the internal border declined by 22% year-on-year in the first six months, which is attributed to the restrictions related to the pandemic.

Western Balkan countries in particular imposed restrictions on movements and even shut migrant centres, however, estimates are that between 10,000 and 15,000 migrants are stranded in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

STA, 21 June 2020 - Police found 22 foreigners trying to enter Slovenia illegally in two food grade tank lorries with Serbian licence plates on Saturday at Gruškovje border crossing with Croatia.

The citizens of Bangladesh, India, Turkey and Syria were visibly exhausted and there was a high chance that they could suffocate, the Maribor Police Department said.

Police first discovered 13 foreigners in one food grade tank lorry. Then then spotted another vehicle of the same company in the line, checking it immediately after discovering that the group of people in the first lorry were very exhausted, finding the other nine illegal migrants.

According to media reports, the foreigners did not ask for asylum in Slovenia, so they were sent back to Croatia.

Slovenian police did not detain the lorry drivers, but filed a criminal complaint against an unknown perpetrator.

STA, 23 April 2020 - Mayors of 23 border municipalities have called on the National Assembly to back the activation of an emergency clause that grants soldiers limited police powers to patrol the border, citing a likely mass spread of Covid-19 among migrants as the main reason.

While the government has been unable to secure the two-thirds majority in parliament to activate Article 37.a of the defence act, the mayors argue the army "is the only institution left with a sufficient number of equipped and trained staff to protect the southern border".

The mayors, whose petition is dated 20 April but was published by Defence Minister Matej Tonin on Wednesday, are surprised by the reservations concerning an expanded use of the army on the border in a time when Slovenia is trying to contain the coronavirus epidemic.

They fear a larger number of infected persons could enter Slovenia, since the virus is already present among migrants and a major spread among them will be impossible to prevent given their accommodation situation in Europe and Turkey.

The mayors are aware of proposals to activate backup police and retired officers and "do not oppose them, but it has been shown in the past that such measures do not enable the activation of several thousand additional people",

While soldiers are already assisting the police on the border, the mayors believe that not being able to restrict the movement of persons and take part in crowd control along the border - the powers granted by Article 37.a - renders the soldiers meaningless.

The mayors moreover argue that the likelihood of a certain number of police officers falling ill also needed to be taken into account in a situation where there are not enough officers on the border to protect it effectively as it is.

It was Emil Rojc, the mayor Ilirska Bistrica which borders on Croatia, that handed the petition to Tonin. According to the minister, the mayors "claim the people are not afraid of the Slovenian army and want greater security".

The coalition has failed to the get the opposition on board for the temporary activation of the additional army powers. The parties mostly claim there has been no significant uptick in migrant numbers that would warrant this, while some have unsuccessfully proposed restrictions to the extra powers.

The government has however remained determined to push ahead with the plan, also getting the backing of President Borut Pahor, the commander-in-chief of the Slovenian Armed Forces, who visited the southern border area along the Kolpa river in the company of the interior and defence minister last Wednesday.

Interior Minister Aleš Hojs told the press last Thursday that the government plans to nevertheless deploy soldiers if needed, using a different legislative provision that allows a more limited form of deployment.

Article 37.a was adopted at the peak of the migration crisis, in October 2015, and invoked in February 2016 to help police patrol the border. Over 442,000 migrants had entered the country between 16 October 2015 and 1 February 2016.

Police recorded 1,835 illegal crossings of the border in the first three months of 2020, which is 6.5% more than in the same period last year.

However, according to Monday's report by TV Slovenija, the number of illegal crossing recorded halved after the coronavirus epidemic was declared in Slovenia. The total figures for 1 January to 20 April were 2,396 in 2019 and 2,038 in 2020.