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Czech police, soldiers hold joint exercise over refugee wave

Xinhua, October 1, 2015 Adjust font size:

500 Czech police officers and 300 troops participated in a joint exercise at the Czech-Austrian border to test the border protection on Wednesday.

They controlled border crossings to Austria in the South Bohemia Region since Wednesday morning with the aim of checking the protection of the state border in case of a stronger migration wave.

It was held along the whole Czech-Austrian border, which also includes the South Moravia Region. Two of the 11 crossings in the South Bohemia Region are rail ones.

Czech Interior Minister Milan Chovanec assessed the results of the exercise "were satisfactory" apart from not meeting the time limit. He said the Czech Republic is ready for a possible new migration wave, but the deployment of the police and military at the border with Austria must be faster, they need to be ready within five hours.

Chovanec said the exercise was of a special importance in connection with the latest developments in Germany and Austria that are getting prepared for a strong migration wave and stricter border checks are one of the variants considered.

If the Austrian-German border is closed, tens of thousands of migrants in Austria are likely to be desperately seeking other ways to get to Germany and the Czech Republic will be one of the few possible routes from Austria to Germany. In case it happened, Czech would do its utmost not to become a corridor, he said. Enditem