Czech police starts border protection exercise

Czech police launched an exercise on Tuesday at its border with Germany to protect the border from illegal migration, said Czech police president Tomas Tuhy and foreign police chief Milan Majer.

The two-day exercise would see over 300 police officers introduce random checks at border crossings.

Police officers from five border regions in Liberec, Usti, Karlovy Vary, Pilsen and South Bohemia will patrol at 16 border crossings. They will not guard the green border. The aim of the exercise is to check the readiness of the police to reintroduce border checks.

The police will test the operation of the registration point for refugees to be established in Petrovice in the Usti region, close to a German accommodation facility for asylum seekers.

The police also want to test the information system to register foreigners' personal data and administrative steps that were taken in connection with them.

The police will also carry out random checks of cars entering the Czech Republic, but Tuhy assured the delay would be minimal.

In the first nine months of this year, Czech police uncovered 4,146 foreigners who were staying in the country illegally, 3,055 fewer than in the same period in 2015.

Czech police and armed forces trained for border protection several times last year and this year. Tuhy said a similar exercise would be held on the border with Poland at the beginning of 2017. Besides, there might also be a joint exercise of the Visegrad Four (V4) countries (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia). Endit