Lithuania discovers tunnel under shared border with Belarus in migration crackdown

April 10, Pozirk. A group of undocumented migrants was arrested in the Vilnius district late on April 6 after crossing irregularly from Belarus into Lithuania through a tunnel dug underground, the Lithuanian State Border Guard Service reported.

Of the 30 undocumented migrants, mostly from Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan who crossed the border irregularly through the tunnel, 24 were returned to Belarus, while two were transported to hospitals due to health issues, according to the agency. Only a few of them carried IDs. The search for three more foreigners is ongoing.

Border guards also arrested two Ukrainians and one Georgian who were supposed to drive the irregular migrants to Poland. They reportedly did not know each other. However, an analysis of their messaging data led border guards to conclude that their actions were coordinated and that they had received instructions related to transporting migrants.

Two days later, another driver, a Lithuanian man, was detained for transporting six nationals of Afghanistan as part of a large-scale operation targeting irregular migration routes.

On the same day, border guards arrested a 44-year-old Azerbaijani national and a 28-year-old Lithuanian suspected of being involved in other crimes related to the transportation of people across the state border. Both may face up to eight years in prison if convicted.

This year, Lithuania reported spikes in irregular migration via Belarus. Vilnius listed the end of the migration crisis as one of the conditions for launching a dialogue with Minsk at the level of deputy foreign ministers.

The flow of people desperate to cross into the EU surged in spring 2021 after Alaksandar Łukašenka, angered by EU sanctions, had indicated that Minsk would not prevent asylum seekers from Africa and Asia from using Belarus as a route to the EU.

In June 2021, the Belarusian government suspended a readmission agreement with the EU in response to sanctions that followed the forced landing of a Ryanair flight in Minsk.

Latvia, Lithuania and Poland call the migration crisis a “hybrid attack” orchestrated by Minsk and Moscow.

The prime ministers of Lithuania, Latvia and Poland signed a joint declaration in late February to strengthen cooperation and beef up border security and respond to hybrid threats. The governments committed “to resist the instrumentalization of migration and other hybrid threats at the external borders of the EU, including land, sea, and airspace.”

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Belarus’ Baltic neighbors see spikes in irregular migration since year’s start

April 7, Pozirk. The migration pressure at the border between Belarus and the European Union has persisted this year, with spikes in irregular crossings reported by Latvia and Lithuania, according to Pozirk’s analysis of border guards' data. Latvia did not …

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