By: Dr Vinko Gorenak
Do you still remember the pompous arrival of a group of severely injured children from Gaza, who came to Slovenia at the end of last year under the direction of Foreign Minister Tanja Fajon, reportedly assisted by former President Danilo Türk with a charitable organisation he leads?
As we know, some of the “children” already had moustaches – but let’s leave that aside; officially, they were children. Member of the National Assembly Anton Šturbej submitted a parliamentary question to the Government of the Republic of Slovenia regarding the children from Gaza. The government’s response can be summarised as follows:
“On October 13th, 2024, 10 patients arrived in Slovenia for rehabilitation, accompanied by 7 escorts. The rehabilitation period lasted between 27 and 51 days. For one patient, due to the extent of their injuries, rehabilitation was extended and completed on January 24th, 2025 – a total of 103 days. Rehabilitation was completed for all but one patient, whose mother decided on November 10th, 2024, to apply for international protection and to prematurely end treatment in Slovenia. Three patients, along with three escorts, returned to Egypt, from where they had arrived. Four people left Slovenia on December 3rd, 2024, and two more on January 24th, 2025. Eight individuals applied for international protection: three minors and their three escorts (parents), and two youths aged 19 and 21. Six people are currently in the asylum centre. In addition, an unaccompanied minor expressed intent to apply for asylum but left the asylum centre before actually filing the application. One escort (a mother) and her daughter left Soča without informing anyone on November 9th, 2024.”
Let’s “translate” the official response from the Slovenian government into numbers understandable to the public. Here is how we can summarize it: They lied to us. They claimed they were bringing severely injured children to Slovenia, yet they now admit that among them were individuals aged 19 and 21 – by our legislation, of course, not children. The official rehabilitation period was between 27 and 51 days. If we were truly dealing with severely injured children, then – in my layman’s opinion – this duration of rehabilitation is clearly far too short.
Let’s break down the numbers. 17 people were brought to Slovenia – 10 wounded individuals and 7 escorts. Only six people returned to Egypt (three patients and three escorts), while 11 people used the situation in one way or another to apply for asylum or international protection, or to flee – presumably to other EU countries. You may assess the effectiveness of the large humanitarian action organised by Tanja Fajon and Danilo Türk for yourself. Personally, I believe that this operation, ostensibly meant to help severely injured children from Gaza, was in large part a means of facilitating illegal entry into Slovenia and thus into the EU – not a humanitarian mission.
Slovenia, under the Golob government and with the assistance of President Nataša Pirc Musar, is indeed a migrant-friendly country – especially for illegal migrants. There is ample evidence for such a claim. From the start of their mandate, the Golob government declared they would be more lenient towards illegal migrants, including removing the razor wire fence on the Croatian border. Furthermore, while most EU countries – including Germany, France, and Italy – decided after the regime change in Syria to stop accepting asylum applications from Syrians, Slovenia continues to do so unabated. Recent data also shows that we are no longer following European asylum policy, as we no longer return illegal migrants to Croatia as the designated safe third country.
To all this nonsense, the President of the Republic Nataša Pirc Musar also contributes, by regularly pardoning convicted and imprisoned organisers of illegal border crossings.
