In the last 24 hours, the Lithuanian State Border Guard Service has prevented 20 illegal migrants from entering the country, who were attempting to cross from Belarus. According to the 15min portal, the group was discovered after an underground tunnel was found in southern Lithuania, which was presumably used for covertly crossing the state border. Rustam Lyubaev, the head of the Lithuanian State Border Guard Service, stated that such cases have been increasingly recorded lately. According to him, the southern part of the country, with its wooded terrain, creates favorable conditions for attempts at unnoticed infiltration. To search for violators, border guards have to implement additional measures, as groups may hide in the forests after crossing the border. This is not the first such case. In June, an underground tunnel was also discovered in the Varėna district during a large-scale operation involving border guards and police. At that time, the service reported suspicions that two large groups of migrants had managed to penetrate deeper into Lithuania. Lyubaev emphasized that successful cases of illegal border crossing remain rare. Migration pressure is also present at neighboring sections of the external border of the European Union. On Monday, Latvian border guards prevented 76 attempts at illegal border crossings, while on the Polish-Belarusian border, attempts by four individuals to enter the country were recorded on Sunday. Since the beginning of this year, Lithuanian border guards have already prevented nearly a thousand illegal migrants from entering. In comparison, in 2024, more than 1,600 attempts at illegal border crossings from Belarus were registered, while in 2023, there were 1,002. The mass influx of migrants to the eastern borders of the European Union began in 2021. The European Union has repeatedly accused the Belarusian authorities of orchestrating migration pressure on the countries of the community.
