Lithuania’s parliament has voted to build a fence on the Belarus border to stop Iraqis, Afghans and other non-EU migrants entering. More than 4,000 migrants have entered EU member Lithuania illegally from Belarus this year – a record number. Authorities have accused Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko of using them to put pressure on the EU to reverse sanctions against his country.
Lithuania would build a four-metre-high (13ft 1in) metal fence topped with razor wire on 508 km (316 miles) of the 670 km border it shares with Belarus, at a cost of €152 million, the Baltic News Service agency reported, citing the Lithuanian State Border Guard Service. Lithuania’s help for Belarusian opposition activists has angered Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko. Relations deteriorated further in June this year after Belarus forced a Ryanair flight heading to Lithuania to divert to Minsk and arrested a Belarusian opposition journalist and his girlfriend on board. Since EU strengthened sanctions a month later, there has been a rising numbers of migrants have reached Lithuania, Latvia and Poland from Belarus in recent weeks. Parliament of Lithuania will also debate whether to allow the Lithuanian military to patrol the border and temporarily restrict asylum-seekers to making their applications only at designated locations, such as border checkpoints or embassies, rather than at any point on Lithuanian territory.
