Slovenia says to build ‘obstacles’ on border amid refugee influx

Slovenia has decided to set up “obstacles” on its border with Croatia in an effort to reign in the influx of refugees from the neighboring country.

“We decided yesterday to start building over the following days on the Schengen (zone) border with Croatia some temporary technical obstacles,” Prime Minister Miro Cerar told reporters in the capital, Ljubljana, on Tuesday.

“These obstacles, including fences if needed, will have the objective of directing migrants towards the border crossings. We are not closing our borders,” Cerar stated.

Slovenia has become one of the main routes for refugees passing through from the south of Europe towards the north.

The flow of refugees transiting through Slovenia increased rapidly in mid-October, when Hungary laid razor wires on its borders to seal the border and stop the influx.

“We know right now that some 30,000 migrants are heading from Greece towards the north,” the Slovenian premier said. The border will remain open, but supervised, he added.

“That shows that the commitments from Brussels... are not being fulfilled. The flow of migrants hasn't reduced nor slowed down.”

Media on Saturday cited Cerar as expressing his frustration about the unresolved refugee crisis in the EU, warning that Ljubljana was running out of patience with Brussels.

Slovenia, with a population of two million, is the smallest country on the refugee routes.

The transit country has been overwhelmed with the steady influx of an estimated 5,000-7,000 refugees on average a day.

“As many as 100,000 refugees could come in the next 10 days, which is unmanageable for us,” Cerar told the daily Vecer at the weekend.

Many of the refugees passing through the Balkan route hail from the Middle East. They reach the continent by crossing the Aegean Sea via Turkey.

Syrian refugees, who are fleeing the foreign-backed Daesh terrorists, make up the majority of refugees trying to reach Europe.

Afghans, who are escaping poverty, make up the second largest group of refugees.

EU border agency Frontex said on Tuesday that more than 540,000 refugees arrived on the Greek islands in the first 10 months of 2015. The figure is more than 10 times larger than that of the same period last year.

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