The Romanian Border Police caught 38 people from Iraq and Pakistan while they were trying to enter Romania illegally, from Serbia.

The Police took them in for questioning, and found out that they were trying to get to countries in Western Europe. Most of them were adults aged 18 to 75, but there were also a few minors aged between 4 and 17.

The Romanian Border Police are now carrying out further investigations for the offense of illegal border crossing.

A report of the Romanian Border Police, released in mid-February this year, showed that more than 1,600 foreign citizens tried to cross the Romanian borders illegally in 2016, 1,075 of whom tried to enter Romania and 549 wanted to leave the country. The Police discovered 351 groups of migrants last year, and identified 140 people smugglers.

Some 56.4 million people crossed Romania’s borders last year, up 22.3% over 2015. Most of them, namely 46.97 million were EU citizens, and 9.43 million were non-EU citizens.

Romania has over 60,000 legal immigrants from outside the EU

Irina Popescu, irina.popescu@romania-insider.com

(Photo source: Politiadefrontiera.ro)