EU stops 141 illegal migrants at Belarus border

August 24, BPN. The European Union countries have stopped 141 illegal migrants from entering from Belarus in the past 24 hours.

The Lithuanian State Border Guard Service reported that it stopped 70 migrants at the Lithuanian-Belarusian border on August 23, taking a total number of illegal border crossing attempts to 4,686 since the start of 2022.

Latvian border guards thwarted 19 attempts to cross the Belarusian-Latvian border illegally.

Polish border authorities tweeted about stopping 52 nationals of Afghanistan, Egypt, India, Iraq, Iran, Congo, Syria, and Turkey.

The migration crisis at the Belarusian-EU border dates back to the spring of 2021. It escalated on November 8, 2021, when thousands of migrants set up a camp near the Polish border. The Baltic states and Poland accused Belarusian authorities of creating the trouble at the border, while the latter blamed it on the West.

Migration figures had dropped significantly by the time Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, but have risen more recently.