MINSK, April 17. /TASS/. Belarus has registered 40 cases of wildlife deaths caused by the EU border fences since September, 2021, the press service of the country’s State Border Committee reported on Monday.
"A roe deer got entangled in the Lithuanian ‘barbed wire’ and succumbed to its wounds on the neighboring territory. It is already the 40th case of animal death on the EU border caused by dangerous barriers erected by neighboring countries. Forty - this is how many animals have been killed by the European 'barbed wire' on the border with Belarus since September 2021," the statement said.
The incident with the roe deer took place on April 16. Earlier last week, a moose was a victim of the Latvian barbed wire spiral Bruno. In January, a deer was fatally wounded on the Latvian border while trying to overcome the fence.
The migration crisis on the borders of Belarus with Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, where refugees have flocked since the beginning of 2021, escalated sharply in early November of the same year. Several thousand migrants from the Middle East and Africa on their way to Europe repeatedly attempted to enter Poland and the Baltic states from the Belarusian side.
At the end of November 2021, Latvia completed the installation of a temporary barbed wire fence on the border with Belarus. Four meters high metal wire mesh fence with barbed wire on top has been built on the border with Lithuania. In front of the fence an additional line of barbed wire with a height of three meters has been installed. Poland has erected a barbed wire fence along the border with a height of 5.5 meters.