EU stops 143 illegal migrants at Belarus border

December 24, BPN. The EU has not allowed 143 migrants to enter illegally from Belarus over the past day.

The Lithuanian State Border Guard Service did not report illegal border crossing attempts but noted that their Latvian colleagues thwarted 40 attempts. Since the beginning of the year, Lithuania has recorded 11,137 illegal attempts to cross the border.

The Polish Border Guard said that 103 foreigners tried to illegally cross the border from Belarus, taking the total of such attempts to 15,300 since the beginning of the year. Border guards arrested two Ukrainians and one Belarusian 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.