The Czech Republic announced on Tuesday (September 27) that it would temporarily resume inspections along the border with neighboring Slovakia due to an increase in the number of irregular migrant arrivals.
"
From midnight Wednesday night to Thursday, border controls will be reintroduced at 27 old border crossing points along the entire length of the border with Slovakia for at least the next ten days
," the national police said. Czech Republic in a statement posted on Twitter on Tuesday.
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Both countries are part of the Schengen zone of free movement of persons.
From early June to early last week, Czech police said they arrested nearly 9,500 illegal immigrants, compared to 1,330 for the whole of last year.
Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala argued that foreign nationals, mostly from Syria, use the Czech Republic as a transit country, before continuing on to other EU countries.
"
We must take this preventive measure in order to deal with the situation in the long term and to discourage illegal migrants from taking this route
", indicated the head of government at a press conference.
The Czech Republic and Slovakia formed a single country until 1993, before separating and installing border crossings which were removed after the simultaneous entry of the two states into the Schengen area in 2007.
