(AP) Latvia, Lithuania and Poland continue to use questionable methods to keep out migrants trying to enter from Belarus and are denying access to aid groups trying to help people stuck in border areas, senior U.N. refugee agency and European Union officials said Thursday.
Around 8,000 asylum-seekers, many from Iraq, crossed into Latvia, Lithuania and Poland last year. Thousands more got stranded along borders in Belarus as the weather turned cold. Some died. But the number of attempted entries has slowed to a relative trickle.
“Even in this dangerous and difficult situation that these three (EU) member states are in, they have to have legislation where pushbacks are not accepted and not legalized,” Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson told EU lawmakers.
