The Lithuanian State Border Guard Service stated that the Belarusian border guard officers pushed a group of illegal migrants into the territory of Lithuania, and then crossed the border themselves. About it it says on the agency’s Facebook page. A video was also published in which migrants are trying to break through the cordon of Lithuanian border guards, and behind the illegal immigrants there is a dense line of Belarusian security officers with shields and in protective gear.
The report states that after repeated warnings, the border guards of Belarus returned to their side. In total, the Lithuanian border service recorded 12 Belarusian border guards.
The border at the place where the incident took place runs along a small water channel.
Lithuanian Interior Minister Agne Bilotaite announced a decision to strengthen border security. According to her, Lithuania does not intend to “endure such an impudent provocation”, writes “New Newspaper”.
Earlier on Tuesday, the Border Committee of Belarus also published videotaped and stated that on it “the Lithuanian security forces are trying to push the refugees into the territory of Belarus with the use of physical force”.
Lukashenka’s “hybrid war”
The situation with migrants became more complicated in Lithuania in the summer. Since the beginning of the year, over 4.1 thousand illegal migrants have been caught on the border of Lithuania and Belarus. This is 50 times more than in the entire last year. Because of what was happening in early July, the Lithuanian authorities introduced an extreme situation regime. They announced plans to build a fence on the border with Belarus.
Following Lithuania, control on the border with Belarus was strengthened by Latvia, which in July adopted a law restricting the rights of illegal migrants. Due to the current situation, since August 11, Latvia has introduced an emergency regime in three border regions and in the city of Daugavpils.
The alarm is also sounded in Warsaw. Since the beginning of August, nearly 2,000 illegal migrants have attempted to illegally cross the Polish border from Belarus. This was reported on Tuesday by the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Poland.
“The Border Guard prevented 1,175 border crossing attempts. 760 foreigners were detained and placed in closed centers, ”the department explained. Published video indicates that the migrants are also accompanied to the Polish border by the Belarusian security forces, who are forcing them to cross the state border.
On Tuesday, the Polish government adopted a draft amendment to the legislation on foreigners, which is designed to respond to growing problems with illegal migration. In particular, the purpose of the amendments is to facilitate the procedures for issuing instructions to foreigners to leave the country, transfers TASS.
The European Union came to the conclusion that Minsk is deliberately creating conditions for a large-scale migration crisis in the EU. This was announced on Tuesday by German Chancellor Angela Merkel after talks with her Estonian counterpart Kaia Kallas in Berlin. According to Merkel, Alexander Lukashenko uses migrants from Asia and Africa to undermine security in Europe.
“President Lukashenko uses refugees, in particular from Iraq, in a hybrid way to question security. We, of course, condemn this in the strongest possible terms. Tomorrow there will be a conference of ministers of the interior of the European Union countries, and here we will also try to take a joint position, because this hybrid method of confrontation used by Belarus is an attack on all of us in the European Union, not just one country. And we completely agree on this, ”said Angela Merkel. Her words leads Euronews.
Formerly, the Dossier Center of Mikhail Khodorkovsky and the German edition of Der Spiegel published documents confirming that the Belarusian authorities were involved in the migration crisis in Lithuania. The transportation of Iraqi citizens to the Belarusian-Lithuanian border was carried out with the participation of the state travel company Tsentrkurort, which is part of the Office of the President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko. It is assumed that the flow of migrants is used by the Belarusian authorities to blackmail European countries, which are imposing sanctions against Minsk for suppressing the opposition and repression.
On August 9, Alexander Lukashenko announced that Belarus is ready to continue to receive tourists from the UAE, Turkey, Syria, Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan, explaining this for economic reasons. At the same time, he denied accusations of organizing illegal migration.