EU stops 83 illegal migrants at Belarus border

November 9, BPN. The EU has not allowed 83 migrants to enter illegally from Belarus over the past day.

Lithuanian State Border Guard Service reported that it turned away eight migrants in the Lithuanian-Belarusian border area on November 8, while their Latvian colleagues thwarted 12 attempts. Since the start of 2022, Lithuania has recorded a total of 10,126 illegal attempts to cross the border.

The Polish Border Guard tweeted that 63 nationals of Afghanistan, Iraq, Kyrgyzstan, and Morocco tried to cross illegally from Belarus. Border guards arrested a Romanian national for complicity in illegal migration. 

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, 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.