On Monday, Lithuania’s Foreign Ministry urged its citizens currently in Belarus to leave the country due to the danger to "the lives of civilians" posed by the regime in Minsk.
The ministry has also advised against all travel to Belarus after Alexander Lukashenko’s regime forcibly diverted a Vilnius-bound Ryanair flight to Minsk, where a Belarusian journalist and his partner were detained by the authorities.
The ministry issued a statement on Monday, saying it "strongly recommends Lithuanian citizens against all travel to the Republic of Belarus and urges all Lithuanian citizens in Belarus to leave the country".
According to the Irish airline, the flight made an emergency landing in Minsk after being notified by Belarus' air traffic controllers of "a potential security threat on board", but "nothing untoward" was found.
A Belarusian fighter jet escorted the plane to the airport in Minsk.
Read more: Belarus scrambles air force, diverts Vilnius-bound flight to Minsk to arrest dissident
Roman Protasevich, a Belarusian opposition activist, blogger and co-founder of the Telegram channel Nexta, was arrested after the plane landed in Minsk, along with his girlfriend Sofia Sapega, a Russian citizen and student of Vilnius-based European Humanities University.
Last year, Belarus put Pratasevich, 26, and Sciapan Pucila, a 22-year-old co-founder of the Nexta channel, on the list of "individuals involved in terrorist activity", and declared the channel "extremist" and ordered it blocked.
According to Lithuania's authorities, 171 passengers were aboard the Ryanair flight, including 94 Lithuanian, 11 Greek and nine French nationals, and a number of citizens of Belarus, Poland, Romania, Germany, Latvia, Russia, Georgia and other countries.
The flight returned from Minsk to Vilnius on Sunday evening.
Leaders of NATO, the European Commission and some EU member countries condemned the incident on Sunday.
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