A first team of six border guards from the European agency Frontex began working on Friday, July 2 in Lithuania, where arrivals of migrants from neighboring Belarus are on the rise.
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Lithuanian border guards said they arrested some 150 migrants in the past 24 hours, nearly double the number of arrests in 2020 as a whole. This brings the total number of illegal border crossings by migrants detected this year to more of 800, mostly from the Middle East. Out of 2020 as a whole, 81 illegal border crossings were detected.
"
The situation is tense and tends to deteriorate,
" Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis told AFP. "
The aim of the Foreign Ministry is clear: economic migrants who cross the EU border illegally should be returned to where they came from,
" he added. The Lithuanian government, which opposes Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, has said it suspects Belarusian authorities of letting migrants cross the border.
European Parliament President David Sassoli on Friday expressed "
concern
" about the situation on the border between Lithuania and Belarus.
“
Once again, someone is playing unacceptably with the lives of other people,
” he said.
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Two weeks ago, the Lithuanian army set up several tents for migrants, to be able to handle the influx.
The number of Frontex border guards to be deployed on the Belarusian border is expected to increase to 30 later this month.
