Lithuania plans to fortify its national border with Belarus in the coming months to address the influx of migrants, Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Mantas Adomenas said on Tuesday
MOSCOW/RIGA (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 03rd August, 2021) Lithuania plans to fortify its national border with Belarus in the coming months to address the influx of migrants, Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Mantas Adomenas said on Tuesday.
"The border will be fortified. Do not ask further it is a state secret," Adomenas told Russian radio station Ekho Moskvy.
The diplomat refrained from naming the cost of the barrier that is currently being erected by Lithuania at the border, saying that "it will depend on a final design." At the same time, he confirmed that Ukraine had supplied Lithuania with barbed wire.
Adomenas also noted that some of the migrants who crossed into the country seem to think they are entering Germany.
"Some of the migrants address our border guards in German. They think they have ended up in Germany. People have been deceived, pure and simple," the official explained, adding that Lithuania is struggling to provide housing for the newcomers, describing the situation as a "race against time."
Lithuania has been seeing a rise in the number of migrants attempting to cross the border into the European Union. A state of emergency was declared on July 2 due to the uncontrolled migrant influx, which Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko vowed not to contain due to Western sanctions. Meanwhile, Lithuania is accusing Belarus of using migration as a tool to get back at the European Union for its decision to impose political and economic sanctions on Minsk.
