Two illegal immigrants were found in the back of a truck that had arrived for clearance at the Customs Administration office of the Zlín Region.
The two men were confident that they had reached France, and were very disappointed when they learned that they were, in fact, in the Czech Republic.
The incident occurred in the town of Valašské Meziříčí. The truck was bringing various goods from Turkey and arrived at the Czech customs office for clearance. A customs employee immediately noticed that the awning on top of the truck was damaged.
“Inside the truck, among the boxes, were two men without passports. They spoke broken English which was not easy to make out. The men told us that they were natives of Pakistan, and they were certain that they’d made it to France. This is a very unique case. I don’t think we’ve ever found illegal immigrants in this customs territory before” said Dušan Janiš, representative of the customs office.
The truck driver said that when he had picked up the cargo in Turkey, the back of the truck was sealed and nobody had opened it again.
The two men were detained. The case has been handed over to the Alien and Border Police, who are working to establish the identities of the men and check if they had time to apply for asylum in one of the European Union countries. If not, the two men will have the opportunity to do so in the Czech Republic.
Author: Holly Webb
