L.Kasčiūnas: there are three groups of migrants at the border, one of them has Belarusian officials
“We see three larger groups in the border area: two and twenty people each, one about forty. “It may be approaching somewhere in the thousand, but now it is not centrally in one place, we do not have information,” the parliamentarian told reporters in the Seimas on Thursday.
To one of these groups, to his knowledge, are Belarusian officials.
“They’re trying to build that lock back. This means that the perspective that a tent camp may appear near our border needs to be seen as completely real and needs to be prepared, ”said L. Kasčiūnas.
A camp on the Belarusian side has already been set up by thousands of migrants at the Polish border this week after they have failed to cross the border. Fearing a similar scenario in Lithuania, a state of emergency has been imposed on the country’s border with Belarus since Wednesday.
However, L. Kasčiūnas emphasized that the abandonment of the reversal policy is not being considered, assistance may be provided to migrants trapped at the border.
“We are not opening up, we are not giving up, we are continuing the policy of reversal, we are continuing to guard the border and perhaps if we see that we are giving a humanitarian package from our state – food, there may be tents, warmer clothes, helping to they would take advantage and be where they are – on the Belarusian side, because it is responsible for this further “, L. Kasčiūnas said.
According to the Brussels news website EUobserver, the European Commission will probably demand that Poland, Latvia and Lithuania amend the laws allowing the expulsion of migrants into the territory of Belarus, L. Kasčiūnas rejects this possibility.
“If Brussels, the commissioner decides to propose a change, let him fly, take all the migrants from Belarus and fly them to Brussels. Lithuania continues its policy of reversal – there are no questions here, ”he said.
According to the parliamentarian, in order to change the law, the European Commission should be offered a sustainable solution – expulsion of migrants directly from Belarus back to their country of origin.
“A sustainable solution would be to empty the planes from Brussels to Minsk, with the Iraqis back to Iraq. This is the vision of the humanitarian corridor. That must be the vision of the humanitarian corridor: to connect all the European levers, to connect the United Nations, all the other institutions, to make that happen. That is the vision that should be, not to abolish the reversal policy and make one migration path, ”said L. Kasčiūnas.
Almost 4.2 thousand people entered Lithuania this year across the border with Belarus. illegal migrants, most of them Iraqis.
Lithuania and other Western countries blame the regime of Aliaksandr Lukashenko for organizing the flow of migrants and call it a hybrid attack.