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Austria's interior minister has ordered a sweeping control operation against migrants trying to enter the country’s eastern and southern borders, according to a note issued Wednesday.
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Interior Minister Wolfgang Sobotka said security checks will be carried out by police and soldiers on border crossing points with Hungary, Slovenia, Italy and Slovakia, as well as freight trains passing through the national territory, mainly from Italy to Germany.
He said some of the migrants were stopped at border crossings that were previously seldom used in attempts to enter Austria illegally, meaning the migrants are using new routes.
“In order to get a better image of the new situation and to curb illegal entries, we will take a more direct approach and a large-scale control for an indefinite period of time,” the interior minister said.
Austria is part of the European Union’s border-free Schengen zone, which eliminates passport checks at the frontier. Many countries reintroduced some border controls after one million refugees and migrants arrived in Europe in 2015.
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Last month, Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz said Italy should stop transferring migrants from its islands to the mainland.
"We demand that the transfer of illegal migrants from Italian islands like Lampedusa to the mainland stop", Kurz was quoted as saying by Austrian news agency APA after a meeting with his Italian counterpart in Vienna.
Kurz also said Austria intends to close its border at the Brenner Pass to secure its border if Italy lets migrants through.
A record number of people are expected to cross the Mediterranean sea in 2017. Since January, 85,183 people have arrived in Italy, compared with 71,279 last year, according to the latest data from the International Organization for Migration.
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