Kiefersfelden, Germany: German Federal Police informed that on September 2, 2023, an 18-year-old Syrian individual was caught smuggling eleven people across the border from Austria to Germany. He didn’t even have a license, too.
The Police mentioned that a car with Bulgarian license plates was stopped for checking at a checkpoint in Kiefersfelden, Germany and found eleven illegal immigrants attempting to cross the border.
The migrants were barely sitting in five seater, with two people in front seat, six in the back and three in the back. The Syrian driver locked the windows, making the air inside the car terrible to breathe. The migrants sitting in the back had to sit on each other for four hours.
German Federal Police highlighted that migrants informed that they were considering themselves near the Serbian-Hungarian border but found out about being taken to Germany; the situation led to a dispute between migrants and the driver.
Among them, four were also carried in the car, including a baby, total of sixteen migrants in one car. After a heated argument, the driver asked everyone to get out of the car and left them in a wooden area.
He took the family with them and returned after one hour. There is no information about where he took them. The Police have confirmed their identity and found Turkish and Syrian backgrounds.
The driver has been caught and is being investigated in connection with smuggling immigrants under life-threatening conditions, attempted border crossing, and driving without a license. He was taken to the Bavarian city of Rosenheim on remand.
The other eleven migrants included three minors and eight adults. None of them have entry visas for Germany. All were later sent to migrant centres. A Turkish man who refused to apply for asylum was sent back to Austrian Police.
Internal checks at EU borders were mostly abolished with Schengen Agreement in 1985, but since 2015, temporary controls at the German-Austrian border have been repeatedly extended.
The latest extension, announced by the German interior minister, Nancy Faeser, in May for the “regulation and limitation of irregular migration,” lasts until November 11, 2023.
