(Reuters) European Union border agency Frontex will deploy 60 border guards with helicopters and vehicles to Lithuania’s frontier with Belarus next week, after a surge in migrants crossing illegally, which the EU says has been orchestrated by Minsk.
In response to EU sanctions, President Alexander Lukashenko has said Belarus will no longer stop people trying to enter Lithuania. Vilnius has since accused Minsk of flying in migrants from abroad to send illegally into the 27-nation bloc, with 1,400 having crossed the border just this month, twice as many as the total for the rest of the year.
Frontex Executive Director Fabrice Leggeri told reporters in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius that the migrant crisis “was created and is fuelled by” Belarus, accusing Minsk of using irregular migration as leverage with the EU and Lithuania.
