{"id":189964,"date":"2026-05-31T12:59:42","date_gmt":"2026-05-31T09:59:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pozirk.online\/en\/news\/189964\/"},"modified":"2026-05-31T12:59:45","modified_gmt":"2026-05-31T09:59:45","slug":"irregular-belarus-latvia-crossings-hit-4200-since-late-march","status":"publish","type":"articles","link":"https:\/\/pozirk.online\/en\/news\/189964\/","title":{"rendered":"Irregular Belarus-Latvia crossings hit 4,200 since late March"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

May 31, Pozirk.<\/em><\/strong> Latvia has been recording irregular crossings by undocumented third-country foreigners via Belarus for the past 66 days, according to Pozirk<\/em>\u2019s analysis of border guards\u2019 data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Latvian authorities thwarted 4,200 such attempts from March 25 to May 29, nearly 97 percent of irregular crossings via Belarus this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In May alone, 2,319 attempts were reported, hitting a 31-month high after October 2023, when Latvia did not allow 2,866 foreigners to cross irregularly into the European Union from Belarus. A comparable figure of 2,247 attempts was also reported in May 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since the start of 2026, Belarus\u2019 western neighbors have recorded at least 5.328 irregular crossings via Belarus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The flow of people desperate to cross into the EU surged in spring 2021 after Alaksandar \u0141uka\u0161enka, angered by EU sanctions, had indicated that Minsk would not prevent asylum seekers from Africa and Asia from using Belarus as a route to the EU.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In June 2021, the Belarusian government suspended a readmission agreement with the EU in response to sanctions that followed the forced landing of a Ryanair flight in Minsk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Latvia, Lithuania and Poland call the migration crisis a \u201chybrid attack\u201d orchestrated by Minsk and Moscow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The prime ministers of Lithuania, Latvia and Poland signed a joint declaration on February 26 to strengthen cooperation and beef up border security and respond to hybrid threats. The governments committed \u201cto resist the instrumentalization of migration and other hybrid threats at the external borders of the EU, including land, sea, and airspace.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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