Din order to cope with the migration crisis on the Lithuanian-Belarusian border, specialists and equipment will be sent there from the European Union. More than 100 migrants cross the border every day
The European Border Agency (Frontex) announced an urgent operation on the border of Lithuania and Belarus in connection with the increased flow of migrants. Vilnius sent an official request for support to Brussels on July 10.
On July 1, Frontex started sending specialists and equipment there to assist Lithuanian border guards.
“The situation on the border of Lithuania with Belarus remains alarming. I have decided to conduct a rapid border intervention to strengthen the external border of the EU, ” said Fabrice Leggeri, executive Director of the EU Border Agency. According to him, additional forces of border guards, patrol cars, as well as employees will be sent to the Belarusian-Lithuanian border to negotiate with migrants and collect information about their participation in criminal organizations.
According to Frontex, in the first week of July alone, the Lithuanian authorities recorded more than 800 illegal border crossings with Belarus. If at first the majority of migrants came from Iraq, Iran and Syria, recently the authorities have noticed a change in the composition of migration flows. In July, the majority of arrivals were citizens of the Republic of the Congo, Gambia, Guinea, Mali and Senegal.
On Saturday, July 10, negotiations were held between Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda and the head of the agency Fabrice Leggeri. Nauseda reported that the European agency will send several helicopters to Lithuania.
Later, during a visit to Poland, Nauseda called migrants “a political weapon” of Lukashenka. “We will not allow the Belarusian regime to use migrants as a political weapon,” the Lithuanian president stressed.
According to Lithuania, since the beginning of 2021, 1,577 migrants have been detained at the border with Belarus, including citizens of Iraq, Congo, Cameroon, Guinea, Iran and other countries. On July 2, the Lithuanian authorities declared a state of emergency.
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The number of people trying to illegally cross the border from the territory of Belarus has increased almost 20 times in recent months. This happened after Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said that in response to European sanctions due to the forced landing of a Ryanair plane in Minsk, his country will no longer help the EU in the fight against illegal migration. He said that the EU requires Minsk to stop illegal migration through Belarus, howeverthe country will no longer do this, as before, because of Western interference in its affairs. “Have you unleashed a hybrid war against us and are you demanding that we protect you as before? Are you stifling us with information, methodically and collectively, destroying us, trying to kill our economy and expecting us to spend hundreds of millions of dollars, as before, to protect your geopolitical interests?”raquo;— he said.
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