The numbers
Until August, more than 5,300 people have tried to illegally cross the EU border from Belarus, according to the European border security organization Frontex. Most reports, about 4100, were made in Lithuania. That is about 50 times more than in 2020.
September statistics are not yet public, but according to the Royal Netherlands Marechaussee, migration to Lithuania has almost completely come to a halt and the flow has completely shifted towards Poland.
Polish border guards report that at least 3,200 attempts have been made to illegally cross the border in September. Saturday there was one record number of 324 reports. In all of 2020, only 122 migrants were stopped at the Belarusian-Polish border.
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