Lithuanian villages take a hard line on immigrants from the Belarusian border
Yadviga Makevich saw 3 migrants through her window.
AFP
Barbed wire surrounds border villages to prevent the arrival of migrants.
AFP
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From her farm near the Belarusian border, retired Lithuanian Yadviga Makevich remembers the day she saw three migrants emerging from the forest.
"I hardly saw them through my window," recalls the 80-year-old.
They were immediately arrested by a border police patrol.”
Currently, police have laid barbed wire along the bottom of her garden in the small village of Celai, which is located in an area almost completely surrounded by borders.
While most of the migrant crisis has centered on Poland's border with Belarus, Lithuania, which is also a member of the European Union and NATO, has faced an unprecedented influx of migrants.
The area around Silai has seen a large influx of migrants trying to cross.
The European Union accuses powerful Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko of orchestrating the flow of migrants in retaliation for European sanctions against his regime.
This crisis will be a major topic at this week's meeting of NATO foreign ministers and US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken in neighboring Latvia, which also shares a border with Belarus.
Sacred duty to guard our borders
This year, Lithuania, with a population of 2.8 million, has taken in more than 4,000 people, the vast majority of whom are asylum seekers.
But since the passage of a law allowing border guards to turn migrants back across the border, numbers have fallen sharply.
But border guards say small groups of migrants still regularly try to cross different parts of the forested border between the two countries.
"It seems that we will not be able to return to normal life soon," said Lithuanian border guard commander Rustamas Lyubaivas.
He explains that he "pity" the migrants trying to cross the border, because the Belarusian system "tricked them" into believing that entering the European Union would be easy.
But he points out that Lithuania cannot let people in, because that would achieve Lukashenko's goal of "destabilizing" the country.
The hard line of the government has strong support in Lithuania.
On a visit to a military base near the border this week, President Gitanas Nauseda told the armed forces that "it is not easy to do your duty and to reject civilians who seek a better life."
"However, you have a sacred duty to guard our borders," he added.
Nobody wants them
But charities, which are banned from entering the immediate border area under emergency laws, said they were concerned about the conditions for migrants still stranded in the harsh cold.
Gidra Blazetti of the non-governmental organization Diversity Development said aid groups should be allowed to reach the border to help border guards identify those most at risk.
"The main task of the border guards is to defend the country's borders, not to care for the people," she told AFP.
We understand that, and that's why we want to be there.”
Even after Lithuania saw its first snow this week, the commander of the Lithuanian border guards, Lyubaivas, warned that the migrants were unlikely to stop attempts to cross.
"This is not a structural migration," he said.
This is Lukashenko’s orderly migration, so the weather will have no effect.”
In the village of Krakonai, also on the border, a resident (Yosef, 56) expressed support for the government's hard line on the border and said he did not want migrants.
"I don't know how this will end," he said.
I hope they go back to their countries.
Nobody wants them here.
They are from a different country, they are different people and they live differently.”
• This year, Lithuania, with a population of 2.8 million, received more than 4,000 people, the vast majority of whom were asylum seekers.
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