Lithuania slams shut the door to the EU for
irregular migrants
‘Lukashenko is always a threat,’ warns a Lithuanian
minister.
BY SERGEI
KUZNETSOV
September
1, 2021 4:00 am
VYDENIAI,
Lithuania — This small village of dilapidated houses surrounded by fields and
forests 5 kilometers from the Belarusian border is an unlikely gateway to the
European Union.
But that’s
what it’s become for about 150 people housed in an abandoned school encircled
by a flimsy metal fence in the center of the village of 400. They are part of a
wave of would-be asylum seekers sent into Lithuania by Belarusian leader
Alexander Lukashenko, who has encouraged people to fly to Minsk from the Middle
East and then cross the borders with Lithuania, Latvia or Poland.
Those
countries have beefed up their frontiers with border guards, troops and fences,
bolstered by policies to turn back migrants. It’s a reaction to what EU
officials call a “hybrid war” waged by Lukashenko in retaliation for sanctions
imposed on Belarus.
Ylva
Johansson, the migration commissioner, said last week that migrants in the
region are “part of the aggression of Lukashenko toward Poland, Lithuania and
Latvia with the aim to destabilize the E.U.”
No open
arms
Those who
have made it into Lithuania face a lukewarm welcome; the country is offering
migrants tickets and €300 in pocket money if they’ll agree to go home. There
aren’t many takers.
“Even if
the offer was higher, I would not go back. This is my final decision,” said
Aman Mehari, a 16-year-old from Eritrea. “I saw my friends dying in front of my
eyes. How I can go back to where people want to kill me?”
He said he
had been forced to flee from Eritrea to Ethiopia, and then flew to Belarus
claiming to be a student to avoid being recruited to fight in a civil conflict
in Ethiopia’s northern region of Tigray.
“They
[immigration officials] have told us that if our asylum applications are
rejected, Lithuania will send us back forcibly,” Mehari said. “If I get sent
back to my country, I face five to six years in prison. I will not stay alive
if I spend five years in prison. In prison, they beat you, they don’t provide
you with enough food.”
Lithuania
is very reluctant to approve asylum petitions.
According
to Arnoldas Abramavičius, Lithuania’s vice interior minister, out of 4,000
migrants who arrived from Belarus since the start of this year, only around
half have been able to file asylum applications. About 200 such applications
have already been rejected.
“From the
artificially created irregular migratory flow, no one has been granted asylum
so far,” Abramavičius told POLITICO.
“However,
there are 83 persons from Afghanistan who arrived in late May and early June,
when the country was not affected [by the Taliban’s seizure of power]. Now that
we have seen the televised pictures [from Afghanistan], asylum status will
probably be granted to them,” he said.
That’s bad
news for the mainly African migrants in Vydeniai.
“I ran away
from Guinea because I was in prison there for two months. If I get back, I will
be imprisoned again,” said Berry Umar, 19, explaining that the reason for his
jailing was “political.”
A
27-year-old Nigerian, who declined to provide his name, was visibly angry after
meeting with officials. “They keep talking to us about fingerprints … But they
don’t want to listen to our stories.”
Rustamas
Liubajevas, the head of Lithuania’s border service, believes that not many
migrants will want to accept a voluntary return as many want to continue their
trip deeper into the EU, despite being told that under European rules they have
to file an asylum application in Lithuania.
“In many
cases, people have been misled by the organizers [of the traffic through the
border with Lithuania] — the Lukashenko regime that uses them as a tool, as a
weapon to put pressure at the EU,” he said. “They really believe that in a day
or two they will be able to continue their journey.”
Crackdown
The tougher
border procedures are having an impact.
Since
Lithuania allowed border guards to force most migrants back into Belarus in
early August, only around 80 have been detained. In July alone, Lithuania
reported a record 2,900 arrivals.
With the
influx declining, the government is beginning to focus on the people already in
the country. Many are still living in hastily built tent camps, abandoned
school buildings and other temporary shelters in rural areas. The authorities
are also dealing with a backlog of paperwork.
“Our
migration control, asylum procedures and accommodation systems were not
prepared for such a flow. Our capacities were quite limited,” Liubajevas said.
“Currently, this is the main challenge for us.”
Over the
past two weeks, special groups of immigration officials have been visiting
migrant shelters to collect personal information, process biometric data, and
in some cases to accept asylum applications, as well as to persuade people to
take the offer to go home.
But the
money that Lithuania is offering is “not really comparable” to the amounts
migrants have already spent on flying to Minsk and then moving on to Lithuania,
Liubajevas said.
The
crackdown in Lithuania, Latvia and Poland is likely to make it much more
difficult for irregular migrants to cross from Belarus, but the tensions with
Minsk are unlikely to die down anytime soon.
Liubajevas
said Lithuania “should keep in mind” the upcoming large-scale
Russian-Belarusian Zapad war games, which are scheduled for September on
Belarusian territory.
“Usually,
during such military exercises there is a lot of activity on the border. That
was exactly the case during similar drills in 2017,” he said. “We should also
keep in mind that Russian troops are actively involved in these exercises.”
Lukashenko,
in power since 1994 and grimly hanging on despite a wave of protests following
last year’s fraudulent presidential election, is showing no sign of giving up
his fight to stay.
“I don’t
know what else he might do. Lukashenko is always a threat — some surprises are
always possible,” Abramavičius said. “The best solution for the whole of European
society is democracy in Belarus. That’s the key issue.”
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