Latvia and Lithuania took steps on Tuesday to protect their borders from migrants from the Middle East, Africa and Asia, claiming that Belarus is encouraging them to cross the European Union in revenge for the Brussels sanctions.
In recent weeks, more and more migrants have arrived in Lithuania, Latvia and Poland accusing the President of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, of using the case to force the European Union to lift sanctions.
The Latvian government has declared a state of emergency in the border areas, a measure that allows the army and police to support border guards.
The Baltic News Service (BNS) has announced that border guards, the armed forces and the police will be empowered to instruct illegal immigrants to return to their country of origin and use physical force if the illegal immigrant ignores their instructions.
The state of emergency runs from Wednesday to November 10 and requires parliamentary approval, which is expected on Thursday.
Since August 6, about 283 people from Belarus have been arrested for illegal entry into Latvia, thus the total number this year reaches 343, the Russian news agency announced.
In neighboring Lithuania, parliament is debating whether to build a four-meter (13-foot) metal fence with barbed wire 508 kilometers (316 miles) of the 670-kilometer border it shares with Belarus, the Lithuanian news agency said. About Lithuanian border guards.
“Without this physical barrier, it is impossible to protect our borders, it is very clear,” Interior Minister Agni Belutaita told Reuters.
The Lithuanian Parliament will also discuss whether to allow military personnel to patrol the border and restrict the applications of asylum seekers only at places, such as border checkpoints or embassies, and not anywhere in Lithuania.
Currently, only border guards are allowed to patrol the border.
The Lithuanian Ministry of the Interior announced last week that 4,026 people from Belarus, which is 2.8 million people in Lithuania, have entered illegally this year, compared to 74 in 2020.
Most come from Iraq, followed by the Republic of Congo and Cameroon, according to Lithuanian border guards. Lithuania says that Belarus allows these people to reach the Lithuanian border after they have gone to the Belarusian capital, Minsk.
(Reported by Jānis Layzans, Ent Kalinins, Gladys Fuchs and Nerijus Adomaitis; written by Juladis Fuchs; Edited by John Stonestreet and Giles Elgood)
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