“We continue to help and will help Latvia. Today, one Lithuanian border guard team returned from service and a new group is planning to depart – 20 officers with four service dogs – who will contribute to joint efforts to protect the external border of the European Union,” said the Prime Minister during the Government meeting on Wednesday.
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As reported by VSAT, the third border guard team will replace the officers who worked in Latvia for two weeks and were deployed in one of the most problematic sections – in the Silene border guard district.
“During joint actions in the Silene border guard district, 80 illegal migrants were detained, who did not have travel or identity documents and identified themselves as citizens of Bangladesh, Morocco, Egypt, Colombia, and Sudan. Besides successful detentions, Lithuanian border guards also actively participated in operations deterring groups of illegal migrants from attempting to illegally enter Latvian territory,” the VSAT statement reads.
According to the service, a special role in this mission was played by VSAT cynologists with service dogs. During operations, when recording border crossings, Lithuanian border guards’ four-legged officers were actively used – their assistance in the Silene border guard district helped detain 63 illegal migrants.
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As BNS wrote, this year over six months, compared to last year’s situation, the so-called secondary migration flow from Latvia increased from just over 300 to more than 1.4 thousand foreigners.
According to VSAT data, this year over 8 thousand migrants tried to enter Latvia, were detained, returned to Belarus, or deterred by Latvian border guards on the Belarusian side. This is almost nine times more than the attempts to enter Lithuania from Belarus.
The so-called secondary migration does not subside, according to Lithuanian leaders, with Latvians struggling to control illegal border crossings. Because of this, Lithuania is sending border guard teams to help Latvia, although it does not intend to allocate the desired 100 officers; the Minister of the Interior, Martynas Katelynas, expressed doubts whether such a number of Lithuanian border guards would help solve the crisis.
