EU stops 83 illegal migrants at Belarus border

December 6, BPN. The EU has not allowed 83 migrants to enter illegally from Belarus over the past day.

The Lithuanian State Border Guard Service reported that it turned away 18 migrants in the Lithuanian-Belarusian border area on December 5, while their Latvian colleagues thwarted seven attempts. Since the beginning of the year, Lithuania has recorded 10,872 illegal attempts to cross the border.

The Polish Border Guard said that 58 foreigners tried to illegally cross the border from Belarus. The border guards arrested three Ukrainians, two Poles as well as a Belarusian, a Georgian, and a Moldovan 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 rose more recently. The number of reported attempts has decreased in the last couple of weeks.