Austria strengthens border control due to rising number of migrants

Austria announced it is to send four hundred additional military personnel to its land borders due to the increasing number of "illegal migrants" trying to enter the country. "We see that the number of people stopped at the Austrian border is increasing again", said the Federal Minister of the Interior, Karl Nehammer, on Saturday (24 July) at a press conference announcing the measure.

According to Nehammer, 15,768 people trying to enter Austria illegally have already been arrested this year. In 2020, the figure was 21,700. Two hundred people smugglers have also been arrested this year.

Most migrants come from Afghanistan. Nehammer said the escape route from Afghanistan "passes through ten safe countries" and that his country hosts one of the largest Afghan communities in Europe. "It cannot be that Austria and Germany solve the Afghanistan problem for the EU," said the minister.

The land border of Austria-Hungary is popular among migrants. For this reason, most additional military personnel will be deployed here, but the surveillance at the borders of Slovakia and the Czech Republic will also be strengthened.

There are currently 1,000 soldiers on security police duty at the border, 520 are on Corona pandemic duty, 134 are currently on disaster relief duty at home - there are 850 soldiers abroad.


source: commonspace.eu with agencies
photo: Border Austria. SchengenVisaInfo.com
 

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Commonspace.eu will this year celebrate its 15th anniversary. In this period we provided space for different opinions, including to persons from the countries and areas we are focused on, which have included Georgians, Armenians, Azerbaijanis, Yemenis, Ukrainians and many others. We have also, as much as is possible for a news outlet that does not have a network of paid journalists, provided accurate information, especially at times of crises. We have done so whilst remaining inspired by our vision for a just and peaceful world, of a Europe that works in peace and collaboration with its neighbourhood, and to give a voice to youth, women, minorities and other groups that struggle to be heard. This week we are launching new features, and strengthening established ones, to make commonspace.eu more effective, and more useful for our eclectic readership. On Thursday, we launch our new series, THURSDAY INTERVIEW. The interviews will be conducted by Lauri Nikulainen, and the first interview is with Murad Muradov, Vice President of the Topchubashov Centre in Baku. On Friday we will have a selection from our regular newsletters: Caucasus Concise, Arabia Concise and Central Asia Concise. We hope to add a fourth newsletter shortly. On Monday, the Monday Commentary by our Managing Editor, Dr Dennis Sammut, is back. The commentaries reflect the author’s years of experience, but equally his passion for change and a better world. On Tuesday and Wednesday, we feature articles by our regular guest contributors, including Onik Krikorian, Benyamin Poghosyan and Vasif Huseynov. We will of course also feature daily news stories from Europe, and the regions around it, the neighbourhood with which we need to build a common future. We hope that you will find commonspace.eu interesting and useful.