STA, 10 April 2018 - Local police have found bodies of two men believed to have tried to enter Slovenia from Croatia by swimming the Kolpa river.
The Črnomelj police found one body on Monday afternoon near the village of Vukovci in the southern region of Bela Krajina with the help of scuba divers.
A few hours earlier, the police apprehended a 19-year-old Moroccan after he swam the Kolpa entering Slovenia illegally, Novo Mesto police said on Tuesday.
The person told the police he had tried to cross the river with a friend, who however did not make it.
An investigation is ongoing to establish the circumstances of the death.
According to the police, another citizen of Morocco and two citizens of Algeria were apprehended in the area on the same day.
This morning, three Algerian citizens were apprehended by the police. Due to suspicion that they travelled with one other person, the police inspected the Kolpa river and found the body of another man near the village of Žuniči. No signs of violence were found on the body.
In February, Novo Mesto police said the number of migrants trying to enter Slovenia by crossing the Kolpa, which is secured with 89 kilometres of fence, had been rising over the past six months.
While police recorded 46 such cases in the the first eight months of 2017, the figure for the period from September to February rose to 196.
Migrants are crossing the river where there is no fence, using boats stolen in Croatia or trying to swim or walk across the river.
The migrants largely come on foot from Velika Kladuša, the town in Bosnia closest to Slovenia, navigating the unknown terrain with their mobile phones.
The majority ask for international protection.
