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Lithuania expelled about 1,300 illegal migrants to Belarus in past week

In addition to the tactic of driving out illegal migrants, Vilnius intends to construct a four-meter-tall razor wire fence with military-grade barbed wire placed on top of it

VILNIUS, August 10. /TASS/. Lithuanian border control officers began cracking down on illegal migrant flows on August 3 when the Interior Ministry granted the agency additional powers, leading to the expulsion of around 1,300 illegal migrants from the border region back into Belarus in the past week, the agency data shows.

The head of the service, General Rustamas Liubajevas, said on Friday that border control officers before that day stopped 700 illegal migrants from infiltrating Lithuania, making them turn back to Belarus. On Saturday, 250 more were expelled, followed by about 80 by Sunday morning, around 100 on Monday and approximately 150 by Tuesday morning.

In addition to the tactic of driving out illegal migrants, Vilnius intends to construct a four-meter-tall razor wire fence with military-grade barbed wire placed on top of it. An additional line of three-meter-tall barbed wire will be placed in front of this barrier.

Since the beginning of the year, more than 4,000 illegal migrants have been detained on the Lithuanian-Belarusian border, which is almost 50 times higher than in the whole of 2020. In late May, Lukashenko said that Belarus used to serve as a block on the way of migrant trafficking but Minsk might rethink its policy in this regard in light of the political pressure applied by the West.

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Belarus Lithuania Migration

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