An African man who had been illegally travelling on board of a cargo vessel, reportedly without the knowledge of the ship’s crew, managed to leave the vessel that had arrived in Tallinn, leave the port’s territory unnoticed and walked around in the Tallinn Old Town before the police caught up with him and took him to the Illuka refugee centre, wrote Eesti Päevaleht daily.
The incident is worried the police and the border guard and indicates that there may have been similar cases before where illegal passengers have been able to enter the Schengen zone without anyone noticing.
Sirle Arro from the Port of Tallinn said that while there were CCTV cameras and security guards in the port, it was theoretically possible that such an illegal passenger can leave the port’s territory unobstructed.
Rene Hartökainen from the Border Guard Service said that in the last two years there hav been two cases where illegal passengers have arrived in Estonia on board of cargo vessels.
Toomas Hõbemägi
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