On Tuesday evening, officers of the Šiauliai border checkpoint of the VSAT Pagėgiai border team stopped a Volkswagen Golf car going to Lithuania for inspection near the village of Škilinpamūši (Pasvalis district). The vehicle with Estonian license plates was driven by a 41-year-old Ukrainian who declared his place of residence in Lithuania. He was accompanied by four foreigners.
All the passengers of the car introduced themselves as Indian citizens, none of them had documents giving the right to enter and stay in Lithuania and the Schengen area. They presented asylum seeker documents issued by the Latvian Aliens Registration Center to the VSAT officials. It soon became clear that 21-year-old, 23-year-old, 28-year-old and 29-year-old men were traveling to Western Europe.
The border guards did not allow the Ukrainian and Indians to continue their journey, they detained them. Illegal migrants were accommodated in one of the units of the Pagėgiai Border Guard. In the near future, as usual in such cases, they will be returned to Latvian border officials, and the Ukrainian will be remanded in custody.
A pre-trial investigation has been launched in the Pagėgii border police station regarding the illegal transportation of people across the state border, which is led by the prosecutor of the Organized Crime and Corruption Investigation Department of the Panevėžys District Prosecutor’s Office. A citizen of Ukraine faces up to 8 years of imprisonment for this.
The detained Volkswagen Golf car is temporarily stored in one of the VSAT units.
According to VSAT, these illegal migrants from Latvia tried to escape illegally for the fourth time. In this way, they abuse the right to temporarily leave the territory of the Aliens Registration Center and be only in the territory of Latvia. Before that, both Lithuanian and Polish officials had already detained them on their way to Western Europe.
Such a scheme, when migrants entering the EU from Belarus ask for asylum in the first EU country, and after the procedures start, look for opportunities to escape to Western Europe, is common. Latvia and Lithuania are only transit states in the plans for the right of such abusers to leave accommodation.
Last year, a quarter of a thousand foreigners who escaped from Latvian accommodation centers were detained in Lithuania and Poland, and almost a thousand more were caught who entered Latvia illegally from Belarus and immediately tried to go to Western Europe through Lithuania.
Last year, VSAT recorded a significant increase in illegal secondary migration from Latvia. In total in 2023 1,193 illegal migrants were detained, who were transported or traveled by themselves from Latvia, which they entered illegally from Belarus.
in 2022 only 84 illegal migrants were detained.
Last year, two-thirds of such foreigners were detained by Lithuanian officials at the EU’s internal borders with Latvia and Poland, where there is no permanent control, or inside the country. A third of such migrants were still detained by Polish officials.
After completing the necessary procedures, Lithuanian border guards usually return such immigrants to their colleagues from Latvia.
According to VSAT data, a fifth, ie 256 persons, of such migrants who left Latvia last year had illegally left the country’s accommodation centers for foreigners. The remaining 80 percent, i.e. 937 persons, who illegally crossed the border of Latvia from Belarus tried to go through Lithuania towards their target countries.
Last year, Lithuanian VSAT officers arrested 168 carriers of illegal migrants. By nationality, the majority of them were Latvian citizens – 53.
Persons involved in illegal human trafficking tried to ensure the trust of migrants at the border of Latvia with Belarus or at places of accommodation for foreigners in Latvia and to transport foreigners from this country through Lithuania to their destination countries in Western Europe, usually to Germany.
Foreigners from Latvia traveled illegally not only using the services of transporters in groups from a few to more than twenty persons, but sometimes, with foreign or forged travel documents, they chose shuttle buses.
in 2023 Latvia has experienced extreme pressure from illegal migration organized by Belarus. Almost one and a half times as many illegal migrants entered Latvia last year and were not admitted than Lithuania, 13,868 and 2,643, respectively.
Since the beginning of the migration crisis caused by the Belarusian regime in 2021. summer until 2023 Lithuania was a more important target of its eastern neighbor than Latvia. Both in 2021 and 2022. twice as many migrants tried to enter Lithuania than Latvia.
Tags: Ukrainians applied asylum Latvia transported West
