Lithuanian border security officers physically dragged Iraqi migrants to the border with Belarus and threatened to shoot them if they attempted to return, the Belarusian State Border Committee said on Friday
MINSK/WARSAW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 29th October, 2021) Lithuanian border security officers physically dragged Iraqi migrants to the border with Belarus and threatened to shoot them if they attempted to return, the Belarusian State Border Committee said on Friday.
"Yesterday, on October 28, the Lithuanian security forces brought a group of 20 Iraqi citizens from their territory and pushed them to the border. According to the foreign citizens, Lithuanian law enforcement officers found them in the forest. Then they forcibly brought them to the border and threatened to shoot if they saw them again in Lithuania," the Belarusian agency said in a statement, attaching a video recording with the testimony of migrants.
The migrants said that Lithuanian security forces confiscated their money, passports and mobile phones and beat them up.
Polish border guards have accused Belarusian soldiers of staging "provocations" at the border, such as shooting blank cartridges in their direction and throwing explosives. On Friday, they accused the Belarusian border guards of broadcasting recordings of children crying.
Since summer, Lithuania, Latvia, and Poland have reported an increase in the number of people illegally crossing the border from Belarus, accusing the country of using migrants as a "hybrid weapon" against the bloc after it imposed sanctions on Minsk. Belarus, in turn, said that it could no longer suppress migration to neighboring countries due to lack of resources caused by Western sanctions against the country.
