(Reuters) Only the whine of mosquitoes mars the tranquility of this idyllic spot amid the rolling forests and blue lakes of eastern Finland, on the European Union’s longest border with Russia. But Finnish authorities fear the peace and quiet of places like […]
(Reuters) Surrounded by lush forests, a dozen people huddled near a razor-tipped fence along the Belarus border, waiting for a chance to scale it or push aside its slats to head west into Poland. On the other side, armed Polish border guards […]
(Notes from Poland) Police officers serving on the border with Belarus have been ordered to carry firearms due to “growing aggression” from migrants. There have recently been several attacks on Polish officers and yesterday a soldier died after being stabbed while attempting […]
(Notes from Poland) Politicians from both the government and opposition have reacted angrily after news emerged that three soldiers were detained by military police for firing warning shots at a group of migrants trying to force their way across the border from […]
(Politico) A Polish soldier has died after being stabbed by a migrant on the country’s border with Belarus, Warsaw’s military said Thursday. The soldier was involved in a clash with migrants attempting to cross Poland’s northeast border from Belarus on May 28, […]
(AP) A Somali woman pushes her bandaged hand between two vertical bars of a thick metal barrier separating Belarus from Poland as she and four other women gaze toward the European Union. They nod gratefully as a Polish humanitarian aid worker calls […]
(AP) Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Wednesday that its forces would further fortify the border with Belarus and can use “all available means” to defend the NATO nation’s frontier, after a soldier was seriously wounded with a knife by a migrant. […]
(TVP) A migrant attempting to illegally cross the border from Belarus into Poland stabbed a Polish soldier on Tuesday, the deputy interior minister reported. The soldier was immediately taken to the hospital and is in stable condition. The attack occurred during a […]
(AFP) Poland has dismantled an alleged migrant trafficking network at the Polish-Belarusian border which was suspected of providing millions of dollars in financing to armed groups like Hezbollah, prosecutors said Tuesday. Thirty-six Polish, Ukrainian, Iraqi and Belarusian members of the alleged network […]
(Politico) A growing number of asylum seekers arriving on the EU’s eastern frontier is forcing Baltic countries to consider border closures with Russia, due to fears the Kremlin is weaponizing desperate people to create a migration crisis on the continent. Latvia, Lithuania […]
(AP) Finland said Tuesday it will close its last remaining border crossing with Russia amid concerns that Moscow is using migrants as part of “hybrid warfare” to destabilize the Nordic country following its entry into NATO. Finland already had shut seven of […]
(AP) When Finland joined NATO earlier this year, Russia threatened retaliation. Now, hundreds of migrants from the Middle East and Africa have appeared at Finland’s border from Russia, seeking entry into the Nordic country. Finnish officials say the sudden surge in asylum-seekers […]
(Reuters) Islamic militants will be among migrants heading for Europe as a result of the conflict in Israel, Poland’s prime minister said on Thursday, as his governing party burnishes its anti-immigrant credentials in the run-up to a national election. The nationalist Law […]
(Reuters) Latvia’s government decided on Tuesday to close one of its two border crossing points with Belarus as the prime minister accused Minsk of again using illegal migrants as a “hybrid threat” to undermine the Baltic state’s security. In 2021, Latvia, Poland […]
(AP) Latvia is growing worried over the increasing number of migrants attempting to cross over into the Baltic nation through the border with Belarus and has called up the military to assist border guards. Latvia’s State Border Guard said on Tuesday that […]
(AP) Poland’s government said Monday it wants to ask voters whether they want dismantled a recently-built border wall that blocks unauthorized migration from Belarus. The loaded question is one of four the right-wing ruling party wants to ask in a referendum it […]
(AP) Poland’s ruling party wants to ask voters in a referendum whether they support accepting “thousands of illegal immigrants from the Middle East and Africa” as part of a European Union relocation plan, the prime minister said Sunday, as his conservative party […]
(AFP) Poland’s government on Monday accused Belarus and Russia of orchestrating another migration influx into the European Union via the Polish border in order to destabilise the region. “We’re talking about an operation organised by the Russian and Belarusian secret services that […]
(Politico) Bitter infighting on Wednesday derailed EU ambassadors’ attempts to finish off the last plank of the EU’s flagship migration reform. As a result, officials will have to break for the summer without completing work on the overall package, which would reshape […]
(AP) Belarus is introducing a visa-free travel arrangement with dozens of countries for a month, raising fears that neighboring Poland and Lithuania might see a sudden increase in unauthorized migration. The authoritarian president of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, signed a decree allowing citizens […]
(Reuters) Lithuania’s parliament passed legislation on Tuesday allowing border guards to turn back migrants who cross its frontier illegally, brushing away concerns from human rights organizations. Lithuania, Poland and Latvia have reported a sharp increase since 2021 in migrants from countries such […]
(AP) Lithuania is seeking up to 120 million euros in compensation from Belarus, accusing its eastern neighbor of orchestrating the immigration of thousands of people, mainly from Africa and the Middle East. Since 2021, when the European Union imposed sanctions on Belarus […]
(Politico) The European Commission is pushing to create guidelines for the NGO boats rescuing migrants off Europe’s shores as part of a plan to reduce the number of asylum seekers heading to the Continent. The plan, presented Monday by the European Commission, […]
(AP) The European Union’s border agency said Monday that the number of illegal entries by migrants spiked to more than 275,000 in the January through October period this year. The figure is 73% higher than at the same time in 2021, and […]
(AP) The Polish border service on Friday reported an increase in the number of Middle Eastern migrants trying to illegally cross into the European Union at the border of Belarus and Poland. In the past 24 hours, border agents detained 117 migrants […]
(AP) Latvia on Thursday rejected as “absurd” claims by Amnesty International that it is violently mistreating migrants attempting to enter the European Union member country through Belarus. The human rights watchdog said in a report released Thursday that Latvian authorities have violently […]
(AFP) Lithuania on Monday said it had finished building a fence along its border with Belarus to fight illegal immigration which the West accuses Minsk of orchestrating. Illegal immigration has soared in EU member Lithuania this year, with around 4,200 migrants mainly […]
(AP) Polish officials on Thursday reported a change in migration patterns across the country’s border with Belarus, with Africans who first traveled to Russia making up most of those seeking to enter Poland illegally by that route instead of people from the […]
(AP) A year after migrants started crossing into the European Union from Belarus to Poland, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and top security officials visited the border area on Thursday to mark the completion of a new steel wall. On Friday, Polish […]
(AFP) Ten Kurdish asylum seekers in Poland on Friday entered their third week of a hunger strike to protest what they described as prison-like conditions and a slow immigration process. “The strike began on May 4,” said Dagmara Bielec, a spokeswoman for […]
(AFP) Poland has welcomed two million refugees from war-torn Ukraine at lightning speed and with open arms. Yet just north of that border, the EU member continues to push back those crossing from Belarus. Since last summer, thousands of migrants and refugees […]
(AP) Turkey “has much to gain” if it works with the European Union to stem migrant arrivals from its airports and shores to the ethnically divided Mediterranean island of Cyprus, a top EU official said Sunday. European Commission Vice President Margaritis Schinas […]
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(AP) European Union interior ministers on Thursday agreed to create a new decision-making body amid efforts to beef up the 27-nation bloc’s borders, and to kick-start desperately needed reforms to the EU’s malfunctioning asylum system on a step-by-step basis. The EU has […]
(AP) French President Emmanuel Macron is taking aim at migration — a core issue in the country’s presidential campaign — by pushing to strengthen the European Union’s external borders against people illegally entering the bloc’s passport-free area. Macron is expected to run […]
(AFP) Polish contractors began work on Tuesday on a 353-million-euro wall along the Belarus border aimed at deterring migrant crossings following a crisis in the area last year. The 5.5-metre-high wall will run along 186 kilometres (115 miles) of the border — […]
(AP) Ministers from European Union nations under pressure from unauthorized border crossings asked Friday for more action to protect the bloc’s external borders as well as for rules to return migrants to their homelands or where they started their journeys. Interior ministers […]
(AP) Poland’s Border Guard authorities say that almost 600 attempts by migrants at illegally crossing the border from Belarus have been foiled so far this year. The attempts have continued since their peak in the fall, but the number of registered tries […]
(AFP) Baghdad has repatriated almost 4,000 of its citizens stuck on the Belarus borders with European Union members Poland, Lithuania and Latvia in recent weeks, Iraq’s foreign minister said Sunday. Since November 18, the Iraqi government has organised “10 flights from Baghdad […]
(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 […]
(Reuters) The Lithuanian government on Wednesday decided against extending a state of emergency along the country’s border with Belarus and at camps hosting migrants who had arrived from the country, Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte said. EU member states accuse Belarus of encouraging […]
(Euronews) Migration once again became a key issue for Europe this past year as tensions flared up at the EU’s border with Belarus. Hundreds of migrants gathered at the bloc’s border as the EU accused Belarus of waging a hybrid war and […]
(Reuters) Sleeping on mattresses in a Belarusian warehouse, hundreds of Middle Eastern migrants are still clinging to the hope of a future in western Europe as the year draws to a close. The nearly 600 migrants, from countries including Iraq, Turkey, Iran […]
(Reuters) Migrants who cross into Lithuania from Belarus can be detained for up to a year, the Lithuanian parliament decided on Thursday, increasing an initial six-month detention limit. Eighty-one lawmakers backed the lengthening of the six-month detention period, which was introduced in […]
(Reuters) [The] Lithuanian Interior Ministry said Belarus authorities have ordered migrants to be cleared from a warehouse near the Polish border and from Minsk, which could lead to renewed attempts to push the migrants in large numbers into the European Union. At […]
(AP) The European Union on Tuesday launched a major revamp of the rules governing the movement of people and goods into and around Europe as coronavirus restrictions and fears over a “hybrid attack” from Belarus using migrants are placing increasing strains on […]
(Reuters) The European Union needs an emergency response mechanism that a member state can trigger when the bloc’s external borders are under threat, French President Emmanuel Macron said on Thursday. Migration crises along the EU’s eastern flank this autumn underlined Europe’s need […]
(AFP) Lithuania said Thursday it would offer migrants a greater cash incentive to return home, as the Baltic state struggles to repatriate thousands who crossed into the EU member from Belarus. Each migrant who voluntarily opts to go back to their country […]
(Reuters) Belarus on Tuesday said its security services did not aggravate the migrant situation at the border by throwing firecrackers or taking other actions as Poland claimed the previous day. The Belarus State Border Committee rejected the allegation by Polish Border Guard […]
(Reuters) Fewer migrants are trying to cross the frontier between Poland and Belarus, but the Polish Border Guard told journalists visiting the previously off-limits border zone on Monday that it still faces provocations from Belarusian forces. Reuters was among a group of […]
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