EU stops 44 illegal migrants at Belarus border

December 20, BPN. The EU has not allowed 44 migrants to enter illegally from Belarus over the past day.

The Lithuanian State Border Guard Service reported that it turned away 22 migrants in the Lithuanian-Belarusian border area on December 19, while their Latvian colleagues thwarted 18 attempts. Since the beginning of the year, Lithuania has recorded 11,119 illegal attempts to cross the border.

The Polish Border Guard said that four foreigners tried to illegally cross the border from Belarus, taking the total number of illegal attempts to 949 in December. Border guards recorded 15,100 illegal attempts to cross the border in 2022. This is a decrease from about 40,000 attempts in 2021. 

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.