A. Situation analysis
Description of the disaster
Since the summer of 2015 Slovenia has been witnessing an increase in the number of migrants from Croatia on the Slovenian border, due to the rapidly changing migration route in the region. The first larger groups of 278 migrants arrived at the Slovenian border with Croatia on 18 September 2015.
Since then, until 8 March 2016, when the Western Balkans Transit route has been shut down, in total 477,791 migrants have crossed Slovenia in search for international protection or better life in Western Europe countries. The majority of the migrants arriving to Slovenia have been in transit since only a marginal number of people asked for international protection in Slovenia.
Since 18 September 2015, almost half a million people have passed through the country, usually staying in the country less than 24 hours. At the peak of the influx, the reception centres were accepting more than 12,000 people every 24 hours.
During the first few weeks of migrant crisis in Slovenia, the situation in the field has been extremely challenging. The sheer number of migrants crossing the country and in need of assistance, lack of experiences in state bodies and in humanitarian organizations about management of such large scale humanitarian disaster, lack of proper shelter items and equipment and diminishing stock of supplies in the warehouses of humanitarian organizations, have caused difficult conditions both for the migrants and for the persons, providing assistance to them. The speed of the migrant flow additionally caused numerous challenges in terms of delivery of assistance, both in material and in non-material sense.
Already before the arrival of the migrants in Slovenia, the Slovenian Red Cross had been actively involved in order to respond to the population movement as part of the State Coordination Group for Disaster Response. The State, under the coordination of the Ministry of Interior, has established five processing centres as part of the response plan in preparation of the potential increase in the number of arrivals at the border line close to Brežice, Rigonce, Obrežje, Dolga vas and Gruškovje.
After the registration of migrants in those five centres, migrants have been located in different accommodation facilities across the country where they could stay not longer than three days. In addition, accommodation facilities across the country were identified, and the following locations were made completely ready to accept migrants for up to 3,140 people at one single time. The locations and capacities of the accommodation centres are presented below, together with number of beds in each centre.
The Slovenian Red Cross with its staff and volunteers has been actively involved at all locations, providing 24/7 support of the migrants and support to the operations of centres.
The situation has, after the beginning of the crisis, significantly improved with the regards to logistical management of the migration flow, as the government has taken general responsibility to manage the process through the National Civil Defense System which has been activated in late September 2015, where Slovenian Red Cross has been involved in crisis management as a member at national and regional level. At this level the division of responsibilities for certain activities has been decided upon, and, as a consequence, the logistical support to the migrants significantly improved, both in terms of availability of supplies and services and in terms of establishing more humane conditions for reception of migrants, their accommodation and support, the transportation in-country and during the transfer to Austria.
During the last stage of the crisis, the whole process was managed at two locations for transiting migrants, one at the entrance into Slovenia (Dobova), and the other at the exit point to Austria (Šentilj), with additional exit point in Jesenice for migrants transported with trains directly to Austria.
The migrants have entered the country in organized way at entrance point Dobova, in coordination with the Croatian government (this was not the case of first period of migrant crisis). The transport was organized by the train from Croatia, and the passengers have then been transported with busses directly from railway station to Reception centre for registration and service. Stricter registration procedures at the entrance point have been introduced during the crisis, and the evidencing of people required significant amount of time, sometimes causing the distress.
The migrants have then been assisted with the provision of food and accommodation at the reception centre facilities, where they had received services offered by the Slovenian Red Cross and other humanitarian actors. The migrants have been settled at the reception centre until the transport arrangements have been completed. Groups of migrants have then transported to Accommodation centre at exit point in Šentilj, where they were settled and assisted. They had to stay in the centre until allowed to progress towards Austria; here Austrian Authorities processed the registration of every individual again. During the 2016, number of people rejected by Austrian authorities grew steadily.
Additionally, the Slovenian Red Cross was present in accommodation centre Lendava, where migrants refused the entrance into Austria have been located.
Migrants who asked for the asylum in Slovenia have been relocated to other locations mainly to Asylum centre in Ljubljana and Vrhnika.
In beginning of 2016, the average number of entries in Slovenia was between 1,500 and 2,000 transiting migrants daily. In March the numbers dropped significantly due to newly introduced strict policy on the West Balkans migrant route, which effectively closed the migrant route.
In February and March 2016 Austria, as key transit and important destination country, started to impose strict policy with the regards to migrants, followed by the same regulation introduced in Slovenia. Changes are also imposed in Croatia, Serbia and Macedonia. This effectively caused the closure of the migratory route through Slovenia, but has caused numerous problems for people found stranded in the countries of the way, especially in Greece.