Border crossings at the Ukrainian-Polish border in 2007

23 January 2008

During last year the Polish border service have recorded 1,046 attempts of Ukrainian citizens to cross the Ukrainian-Polish border and Polish borders with other European Union states illegally, or 17% less than in 2006, reports the Polish border service.

According to the statistical data, border guards detained 1,224 Ukrainians in 2006.

Around 560 Ukrainian citizens both in 2007 and in 2006 were detained at the Ukrainian-Polish border.

The second largest number of illegal border crossing cases was reported for the Polish-German border, 490 Ukrainians in 2006 and 389 in 2007.

Ukrainians were also caught at the Polish border with the Czech Republic ((64 in 2006 and 33 in 2007), Slovakia (5 and 11), Belarus (4 and 8), and Lithuania (one in 2006 and one in 2007)).

Twenty-eight Ukrainians were detained in the territory of Poland in 2006 and two in 2005.

Thirty-seven Ukrainians were arrested in airports in 2007 (62 in 2006) and three at the marine border of Poland (seven in 2006).

The border agency said that of the total number of citizens who attempted to cross the border illegally, the share of Ukrainians detained in 2007 and 2006 was around 30%.

The press service reported that 228 cars were detained at the Polish-Ukrainian border last year during an attempt to take them out of Poland illegally.

Their total cost was PLN 13.37 million (around USD 5.4 million), 8.5% more than in 2006.

As Ukrainian News earlier reported, passenger traffic across the Polish-Ukrainian border fell by 1.5% to 19.127 million last year. A total of 4.98 million foreigners came to Poland from Ukraine, 5% down from 2006.