LJUBLJANA: Slovenia will ask the European Union to send additional police forces to its border with Croatia to help it deal with rising number of migrants going to Western Europe, President Borut Pahor said on Tuesday.

“We need fast assistance of the European Union,” Pahor told a news conference in Brussels after meeting European Union Council President Donald Tusk and European Union chief executive Jean-Claude Juncker.

About 19,500 migrants have entered Slovenia since Friday, the Interior Ministry said, when Hungary sealed its southern border, creating bottlenecks at Balkan border crossings as migrants attempted to find new routes through the region.

The government has pleaded for help from the European Union , saying that Slovenia with its population of two million people, was too small to cope with the migrant flow.

Asked if Slovenia could build a fence like Hungary, Interior Secretary of State Bostjan Sefic said he could not exclude the possibility of “safeguarding border crossings with physical obstacles.” Sefcic told the news conference that a total of 140 soldiers had been sent to the border and were working under the police.

Over half a million refugees and migrants have arrived by sea in Greece this year and the rate of arrivals is rising with over 8,000 coming on Monday alone, in a rush to beat the onset of freezing winter, the United Nations said on Tuesday.