The Lithuanian border guard says 12 members of the Belarusian security forces crossed the border into the Baltic on Tuesday in an emergency operation. According to Lithuanian border guards, they did so when they drove 35 Iraqi immigrants into Lithuania. Reuters reports that Vilnius has announced that he will strengthen border patrols after the incident.
Border guards on their social networks Published Scenes from this situation “As seen in the video, the Belarusian border guard (…) pushes a group of illegal immigrants into Lithuania. Then they themselves cross the border line,” Dass quotes, preventing the immigrants from moving forward.
The Belarusians left the area a few minutes later. They did so after repeated warnings of border violations, said Rogas Bukinskas, a spokesman for the Lithuanian border guards.
Before the Belarusian Border Security Committee Published The video, which filmed the incident from the Belarusian side, alerted Reuters. Members of the Belarusian security forces are not known. “The Lithuanian border guards are using physical force to push refugees into the Republic of Belarus,” the group said, adding that the group included children and a pregnant woman.
From current information it is not clear in which country the immigration group ended up.
In recent months, Lithuania has faced the influx of Iraqi immigrants, especially through neighboring Belarus. Border security detained more than 4,100 migrants this year, up from 81 last year. In August, the flow of newcomers weakened as Lithuania began to return immigrants to Belarus. Latvia has recently seen an increase in the number of immigrants coming through Belarus.
Vilnius and the EU sent people from Iraq and other Middle Eastern countries or Africa across the border to Lithuania in an organized manner under the dictatorial regime of Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko in response to EU sanctions on Minsk. The borders of the Baltic states are also the outer borders of the European Union.