April 6, Pozirk. On April 4, illegal border crossings by third-country nationals from Belarus into Poland spiked to 305, hitting a record daily high since the start of the migration crisis in 2021, Pozirk‘s analysis of border guards’ data showed.
Latvian border guards did not allow at least 19 migrants to enter illegally from Belarus on Thursday, while their Lithuanian counterparts did not report any illegal border crossings.
Over the past day, neither Latvia nor Lithuania recorded illegal border crossings from Belarus. The Polish border guards did not publish illegal migration data for Friday.
Since the start of 2024, the EU thwarted at least 5,848 illegal border crossings on its shared border with Belarus, with 4,831 attempts via Poland, 872 via Latvia and 145 via Lithuania.
The migration crisis at the Belarusian-EU border started in spring 2021 after Alaksandar Łukašenka, angered by EU sanctions, had indicated that Minsk would not prevent migrants from Africa and Asia from using Belarus as a route to the EU. It escalated in November 2021, with hundreds of migrants storming the Polish border.
In June 2021, the Belarusian government announced the suspension of a readmission agreement with the EU in response to sanctions that followed the forced landing of a Ryanair flight in Minsk.
Pozirk’s analysis of daily stats indicated fluctuated tension at the Belarusian-EU border throughout 2023 with illegal border crossings picking up the pace in February.
The Baltic States and Poland accused Belarusian authorities of creating the trouble, while the latter blamed it on the West.
In August 2023, the interior ministers of Poland and the Baltic States warned that they would close the border with Belarus in response to a surge in illegal migration.
