When refugees are used as a weapon
The border area between Lithuania and Belarus is in turmoil
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Refugee camps from Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq In different parts of the world, people in Lithuania have long seen these images from other countries only on television, but the situation has changed now that several hundred refugees have illegally crossed their country's borders from Belarus.
In a makeshift camp in the wooden village of Rudninkai, there are already more immigrants than the locals. They come from neighboring Belarus, where the ruler, Alexander Lukashenko, is enraged by EU sanctions and is retaliating by allowing large numbers of refugees to slip in.
For weeks, the village of Rudninkai, with a population of about 500, has not been as calm as it used to be. The refugee camp there caused an uproar in the town 30 kilometers south of the Lithuanian capital Vilnius, and in this camp the country's government, overlooking the Baltic Sea, welcomed the government of the country. And belonging to the European Union, more than 700 immigrants, illegally crossed the border from Belarus to Lithuania, which angered many of the townspeople.
"Stop the immigrants in Rudninkai!"
And “We say no to the illegals!” With these words, protesters expressed their rejection of illegal immigrants on posters hung on fences at the main intersection in their town.
The makeshift camp is located one kilometer from these walls in a forested area and is the largest initial reception facility for refugees in Lithuania, which has a population of three million and shares a 680 kilometer border with Belarus.
feeling insecure
“We feel unsafe, there are more immigrants here now than locals,” retired Teresa Zavadskaya, 80, told dpa on her way to the village store. Similar concerns, where they fear for their safety.
Since last May, more than 4,100 refugees have illegally crossed the green border between Lithuania and Belarus, and in the whole of the previous year, only 81 migrants arrived in Lithuania, and the Lithuanian camp currently includes people from Afghanistan, and the Belarusian airline "Belavia" flies to the two countries bordering Afghanistan. Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, where many Afghans flee the Taliban movement.
In Minsk, Lukashenko stated several times that his border guards would no longer prevent migrants from continuing to travel to the European Union, as a response to the harsh Western sanctions against the former Soviet republic, isolated from the West.
Lukashenko complains that the European Union has cut off money from his country, and says that the European Union is demanding border protection, "but who will pay for that?"
Hybrid war
On the other hand, the Lithuanian government speaks of a “hybrid war” against its country and the entire European Union, and the European Union accuses Lukashenko of using “refugees as a weapon” against the Union. In Berlin, Chancellor Angela Merkel criticized Lukashenko’s actions, describing them as “an attack on us all in the European Union.”
Since the beginning of last August, the Lithuanian border guards have prevented the infiltration of migrants who want to enter the country illegally through Belarus, but in the end the detained migrants must be accommodated, most of whom come without a passport and seek asylum, in return for this the refusal to accept refugees is escalating in several places near the border. , along with criticism of the way the authorities deal with the local population.
In Rudninkai, about 30 kilometers from the Belarusian border, access to the camp was obstructed by villagers, which was built on a site owned by the Ministry of the Interior. She later reported anti-state actions, adding that the villagers were "incited" by people with interests.
Meanwhile, unrest among the migrants themselves caused an uproar in Rudninkai, where about 20 refugees finally fled the camp, and were later arrested again by the police. According to the Interior Ministry, the cause of the disturbance was dissatisfaction with living conditions.
“The weather is cold, we don’t have clothes,” repeat some of the men sitting in a small group at the camp’s fence. One of them says in broken German: “My wife is in Germany.” The Iraqi says that he spent 35 days in the camp, after he first arrived by plane from Baghdad to the Belarusian capital, Minsk, from where he then made his way to and across the border.
The media in Lithuania constantly reports on these escape routes, and does not rule out the existence of people-smuggling gangs, and for many of these migrants, Germany is their destination.
According to a report from the 15min.lt online news portal, the trip from Iraq to Germany, which begins with a trip to Belarus, costs a total of about $3,000, and the question about the costs of smuggling migrants fades through a spontaneous demonstration in the Rudninkai camp, in which the refugees chant “Freedom Afghanistan” and other slogans.
The state media in neighboring Belarus has been happily exploiting the state of emergency in Lithuania for weeks. Lukashenko refers to Lithuania, complaining that the poor refugees are being treated inhumanely as if they were in a "Nazi concentration camp", and says that it is not for Belarus, but for the West to He bears responsibility for his policies in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere, where everything has been destroyed, as he puts it, considering that “it makes sense that immigration through Belarus will increase.”
Lukashenko declared that he had no intention of stopping anyone from crossing the border, repeatedly claiming that EU countries would be happy with the workforce coming in, but that in Belarus there was no place for them.
• Lukashenko announced that he does not intend to prevent anyone from crossing the border, repeatedly claiming that EU countries would be happy with the workforce coming to them.
• For weeks the village of Rudninkai, with a population of about 500, has not been as calm as it used to be. The refugee camp there caused a stir in the town, 30 kilometers south of the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius.
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