The situation at the border is also continuing to stabilize. According to police spokesman Helmut Marban, there are currently 100 to 200 arrests a day, far fewer than in December. On the one hand, this is due to the temperatures, on the other hand, measures such as the end of visa-free travel for Tunisians in Serbia are already having an effect.
687 traffickers were arrested
Nevertheless, the SPÖ is again demanding more measures against people-smuggling crime. For state manager Roland Fürst, the situation is even “dramatic”. After all, there are always chases and accidents involving towing vehicles. “The population in the border communities is unsettled, Burgenland is the hot spot for international trafficking crime,” said Fürst to the APA. His proof of this: Austria-wide 687 tractors in the previous year arrested, 300 of them in Burgenland.
The addressee of this criticism is once again the federal government or ÖVP Interior Minister Gerhard Karner. He justified the high number of people smuggler arrests on Wednesday with the measures already implemented and attributed them to intensive border controls and cooperation with the criminal police units of the Western Balkans.