Illegal migrants make over 1,000 attempts to enter EU from Belarus this year

January 15, BPN. The EU has not allowed 92 migrants to enter illegally from Belarus over the past day.

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

The Lithuanian service, citing Latvia’s State Border Guard, said 16 illegal attempts to cross the Belarusian-Latvian border were documented.

The Polish Border Guard said that 69 foreigners tried to illegally cross the border from Belarus.

A total of 1,019 illegal attempts to enter the EU from Belarus have been registered since the beginning of 2023 (634 to Poland; 253 to Latvia; 132 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.