Lithuania has deployed extra troops to its state frontier with Belarus, the country’s Ministry of National Defence revealed on Thursday, noting that there are now 1,200 servicemen on the border trying to prevent illegal migration.
Arvydas Anušauskas also noted that the troops had been tasked with building a concertina barbed wire fence to stop asylum seekers illegally crossing the border.
On 21 September, Lithuania revealed that 2,800 migrants from across the Belarusian border had applied for asylum in the country since the start of August – significantly more than in the entire year of 2020. There have also been reports of deaths at the frontier.
The migrant crisis on the border started earlier this summer, when Lithuania reported increased illegal migration, with foreign nationals, mainly from the Middle East, attempting to cross into the European Union via Belarus. It began after Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko warned that his country would no longer make any effort to stop illegal immigration.
Vilnius’ treatment of asylum seekers has also incurred the wrath of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). Last month, Lithuania sent five Afghan migrants back to Belarus despite an ECHR court order that they should be allowed to stay.
Besides Lithuania, Poland and Latvia have also come under attack for their treatment of migrants crossing over from Belarus. The ECHR has demanded that the Polish and Latvian authorities provide food, water, clothing, adequate medical care and shelter to the migrants, while London-based human rights NGO Amnesty International has slammed Warsaw for stranding 32 Afghan migrants in no-man’s-land.
