EU stops 43 illegal migrants at Belarus border

January 14, BPN. The EU has not allowed 43 migrants to enter illegally from Belarus over the past day.

The Lithuanian State Border Guard Service reported that it turned away 14 migrants in the Lithuanian-Belarusian border area.

The Lithuanian service, citing Latvia’s State Border Guard, said no illegal attempts to cross the Belarusian-Latvian border were documented.

The Polish Border Guard said that 29 foreigners tried to illegally cross the border from Belarus.

A total of 927 illegal attempts to enter the EU from Belarus have been registered since the beginning of 2023 (565 to Poland; 237 to Latvia; 125 to Lithuania).

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.