Over one hundred Slovakian asylum-seekers have arrived in Finland during the early months of 2004, more than from Slovakia in 2003 as a whole. The flow of new arrivals has continued up to the past few days.

   

Last weekend alone, 48 Slovakian Roma lodged applications for asylum at the Helsinki-Vantaa International Airport. They flew to Finland from Prague.

   

So far this year, 110 people have announced their asylum intentions at Helsinki-Vantaa. Slovakians comprise all but 24 of them.

   

Dozens of Slovakian asylum-seekers also crossed the border from Sweden into Northern Finland in February.

   

A part of the Roma have already previously applied for asylum in Finland or another EU member state.

According to the Directorate of Immigration,

some of the new arrivals have previously been banned from entering Finland, and these bans are still in effect. Such bans originate from rejections of asylum applications.

   

The preliminary questioning of the Slovaks has revealed that more Slovakian Roma can be expected to arrive in Finland within the next few weeks.

   

The Directorate of Immigration processed 113 applications lodged by Slovakians last year. One was granted a residence permit, 102 applications were rejected, and ten applicants left the country of their own accord.

   

The number of asylum-seekers crossing the border in Northern Finland has usually been small, but the situation has changed of late. Around one hundred asylum-seekers have chosen this route during the past fall and winter. In addition to Slovakians, the group has included people from Macedonia as well as Serbia and Montenegro.