EU stops 187 illegal migrants at Belarus border

September 24, BPN. European Union countries have not allowed 187 migrants to illegally enter from Belarus over the past 24 hours.

The Lithuanian State Border Guard Service reported that it turned away 96 migrants in the Lithuanian-Belarusian border area on September 23, while their Latvian colleagues thwarted 11 attempts. Since the start of 2022, Lithuania has recorded a total of 7,630 illegal attempts to cross the border.

The Polish Border Guard tweeted that 80 nationals of Mali, Turkmenistan, and Turkey tried to illegally cross the border from Belarus in the past 24 hours. Border guards arrested an Afghani national carrying five illegal migrants from Afghanistan as well as a Belarusian and a Russian carrying Yemenis. 

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.