Latvia has again extended a state of emergency in regions along its border with neighboring Belarus. In August 2021, a state of emergency was declared as thousands of refugees from Belarus tried to illegally cross the EU’s external border.
By decision of the government in Riga, the special arrangement in the Baltic EU and NATO country is now valid until May 10.
With the extension, the Latvian Border Guard remains authorized to return refugees who have entered Belarus illegally. According to the Ministry of the Interior, the number of attempted illegal border crossings has increased again since November 2022. Another factor in the decision was that Latvia – unlike Poland and Lithuania – has not yet built a permanent fence along its border with authoritarian Belarus. In addition, the extension also took into account Russia’s war against Ukraine, which is supported by the leadership in Minsk. Latvia borders Russia and its ally Belarus.
More than 9600 transfer attempts
According to data from the Ministry of the Interior, more than 9,600 attempts to cross the border illegally have been recorded since the declaration of a state of emergency in Latvia. The European Union has accused Belarusian ruler Alexander Lukashenko of bringing refugees from crisis regions to the EU’s external border in an organized manner.
Source: Krone
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