83 people have been prevented from entering the territory of Portugal since Sunday, July 23, when internal border controls were reintroduced, until Thursday, July 27, during which period the Portuguese border authorities controlled a total of 503,633 people.
According to the Internal Security System report published today, 31,874 people have been inspected at land borders, 36,3587 at sea borders, and 438,402 passengers have gone through air border controls to enter Portugal in the last six days.
“As part of the operation, 83 people were refused entry, of which 50 were trying to reach Portugal by land and 33 by air,” the report reveals.
In total, 2,571 flights were subject to border controls since Sunday, at five airports – those of Lisbon, Porto, Faro, Madeira, and Ponta Delgada. Another 7,559 vehicles were checked at the land borders and, 635 vessels were controlled at maritime borders, 117 of which in the last 24 hours.
Portugal reinstated internal border controls last Sunday, ahead of the Catholic Festival World Youth Day that is set to be held in Lisbon between August 1 and 6. On the first day alone, over 77,000 people were inspected, and 17 of them were prevented from entering Portugal. Two people have been arrested, one at the Lisbon airport for illegal documents and stay and the other at the Faro airport under suspicions of human trafficking.
The measures will remain effective until August 7, and are being implemented by the Immigration and Borders Service SEF, with the assistance of the Public Security Police (PSP) and the National Republican Guard (GNR).
“Given the complexity of the event and the need to guarantee internal security, the Government understood that it was necessary to reintroduce documentary control at land borders,” Portugal’s SEF has said, arguing the necessity of such a measure to be reimposed.
Border officers are, in particular, focusing on selective controls based on prior risk analysis for Schengen flights and for children under 18 when unaccompanied by those exercising parental responsibilities.
World Youth Day 2023 is a Catholic festival that was originally set to be held in the summer of 2022 but was postponed to August 2023 by the Holy See due to the Coronavirus. The theme of the event for this year is “Mary arose and went with haste”.
Travellers have been warned to stay prepared for possible border delays due to the controls.
Reintroducing border controls for a few weeks is a common thing amongst the Schengen countries. Only recently, Finland had its border controls reintroduced during the visit of United States President Joe Biden and the US-Nordic Leaders’ Summit in Helsinki on July 13, 2023.
