Lithuania says Belarus is using refugees as a weapon
EU should consider imposing more sanctions on Belarus because Minsk is flying in migrants from abroad to send them illegally into the bloc, says Lithuanian Foreign Minister
The European Union (EU) should consider imposing more sanctions on Belarus because Minsk is flying in migrants from abroad to send them illegally into the bloc, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis said on Monday.
His government accuses Belarusian authorities of sending hundreds of mainly Iraqi migrants across the border into Lithuania, an EU member state.
Lithuania began building a 550-km razor wire barrier on the border with Belarus on Friday, a move that EU foreign ministers were due to discuss in Brussels.
“When refugees are used as a political weapon... I will talk to my colleagues in order for the European Union to have a common strategy,” Landsbergis said as he arrived for the meeting.
Lithuania will open a new camp to house illegal migrants, the interior minister said.
“This week we will launch a camp in Dieveniskes, fit to house 500 people,” said Interior Minster Agne Bilotaite ater a meeting of the Lithuanian leadership to discuss the migration crisis.
The camp will be based around a disused school building and would be expanded later by building tents or temporary housing in the surrounding area, the minister’s spokeswoman told Reuters.
He suggested the migrants were being used as a means of pressure on the EU, which has imposed a series of sanctions on Belarus since a disputed presidential election last August that was followed by a police crackdown on street protests.
“We need to be very strict with the regimes who are using these sorts of weapons, first of all with sanctions, when these sorts of hybrid atacks are used against the European Union,” Landsbergis said.
He said the EU should draw up a fith package of sanctions, following blacklistings of Belarusian officials that began as a response to the presidential election but now seek to punish wider abuses. Lukashenko has denied electoral fraud.
Last month, the EU imposed broad economic sanctions on Belarus’ main export industries, and on banks and finance, to try to hit sources of revenue for President Alexander Lukashenko, who has been in power since 1994.
EU leaders were outraged when Belarusian authorities intercepted a passenger plane flying between Athens and Vilnius on May 23 and arrested a dissident journalist and his girlfriend who were on board.
Lithuania’s foreign ministry has told Reuters it will propose a gradual expanding of the economic sanctions.
The EU border guard agency Frontex said on Monday it would send additional officers, patrol cars and experts to talk to migrants to gather information on criminal networks.
“The situation at Lithuania’s border with Belarus remains worrying. I have decided to send a rapid border intervention to Lithuania to strengthen EU’S external border,” Frontex Executive Director Fabrice Leggeri said in a statement.
In the first week of July, Lithuanian authorities recorded more than 800 illegal border crossings at its border with Belarus, according to Frontex.
While in the first half of the year most migrants came from Iraq, Iran and Syria, the agency said, nationals of Congo, Gambia, Guinea, Mali and Senegal accounted for the majority of arrivals in July.
“Lithuania’s border is our common external border and Frontex stands ready to help where needed,” Leggeri said in a statement.
“We are ready to strengthen our level of support and deploy more European standing corps officers and equipment” to Lithuania, an EU and Nato member of 2.8 million.
Frontex’s operation, which started earlier this month with the deployment of a dozen officers and patrol cars, will more than double next week, the agency said.
Nauseda’s office said reinforcements pledged by Frontex were expected to reach Lithuania by July 15 and that some armed border patrols and additional translators arrived over the weekend.
In addition, a patrol helicopter will be sent to Lithuania from neighbouring Poland and discussions were under way to dispatch another helicopter from Germany, Nauseda’s office said.