A small country of just two million inhabitants, Slovenia has only one center for asylum seekers. The center in Ljubljana can accommodate up to 200 people, but it is rarely full. Most migrants stay only a few days to rest before vanishing 'into thin air'.
Since 2015, the Slovenian government has been erecting a barbed wire fence along its southern border in an attempt to stem the flow of migrants from neighboring Croatia. Residents of nearby Slovenian villages are not happy about the barrier, which they say damages the landscape and does not prevent migrants from crossing.
Croatian police on Friday fired on a group of migrants trying to irregularly reach neighboring Slovenia, local officials said. One man was critically injured. Thousands of migrants trying to reach western Europe are stuck in the Balkans.
In EU member state Slovenia, paramilitaries say they are facing down a migrant 'threat' on the border with Croatia. Their patrols includes trying to catch migrants climbing over the border fence and signalling their presence to the police. The founder and group commander this year served time in jail for forming the vigilante group and urging the overthrow of state institutions.
A Croatian migrant rights group has placed a sign saying ''Welcome to Croatia - Country of torture'' at the border between Croatia and Bosnia to protest against reported cases of violence against migrants at the hands of the authorities. The protest is also directed against Croatia joining the Schengen zone.
Authorities in Slovenia, Italy, Bosnia and Croatia have dismantled an organization that allegedly smuggled migrants from the Balkans to EU countries like Italy.
The Slovenian Constitutional Court has scrapped an article of an immigration law that allowed the country to limit foreigners' access after a vote in parliament in the event of a migrant crisis.
Austria’s interior minister has said his country will continue to conduct checks on the borders with neighboring Hungary and Slovenia. All three EU countries are members of the Schengen zone whose members don't have controls at their mutual borders. But six Schengen countries, including Austria, have reintroduced border checks for security reasons.
Slovenia has reported 11,291 irregular border crossings since the start of this year, according to the interior minister.
Slovenia and Austria are discussing a proposal by the government in Ljubljana to create a joint border patrol along the border the two countries share. Vienna is evaluating the possibility.
Authorities in the border region say the number of asylum seekers has fallen and emergency situations in migrant camps have been resolved. The region's security assessor wants the new federal government "work towards impenetrability of the border area, including... as a last solution, the suspension of Schengen."
The issue of migrants was at the center of a meeting between the presidents of Croatia, Slovenia and Austria. Croatia said that it has been successfully protecting EU borders, but did not address reports of police abuse of migrants.