Rescue of a Syrian teenager suffering from hypothermia at an altitude of 1,200 meters on the Austrian-Slovenian border outside

A 61-year-old man was hiking in the Austrian mountains near the border with Slovenia on Sunday. He heard someone calling for help and found an injured Syrian boy in the forest. According to Austrian rescuers, he was suffering from severe hypothermia and was barely conscious.

Since the victim was in a densely forested area covered in snow, rescuers carried him one kilometer to an open area. A rescue helicopter picked him up from there and took him to the hospital.

In 2023, more than one million asylum applications were submitted in the European Union, most of them from people from Syria and Afghanistan. This is clear from the figures of the European Asylum Agency EASO.

However, Austria has tightened controls at its southern border, resulting in a decline in the number of asylum applications between 2022 and 2023. According to the European Asylum Support Office, this was clearly a different trend than in the rest of Europe. However, Slovenia has seen asylum applications double. According to Slovenian police, migrants are looking for new routes in northern Slovenia to reach Austria, including via mountain passes.

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