A human rights monitor at the Lithuanian parliament recorded flares and gunshots used by Belarusians to force migrants over the border into Lithuania.
“Belarusian officers fired flares into the air [and] monitored our officers from towers and while hiding in the forest,” Vytautas Valentinavičius, the Human Rights Bureau chief at the Seimas Ombudsmen's Office, wrote in a post on Facebook.
Valentinavičius said he was on a mission to monitor how the pushbacks, legalised earlier this week, looked in practice.
In the early hours of Friday, a group of 45 people was returned back to Belarus.
“But they remained standing on the Belarusian side, asking for mercy, for access to Lithuania – a safe EU country. But the border officers, shouting ‘go to a safe country – Belarus’ and ‘go away’, started taking deterrence measures,” he wrote.
“A woman with a child begins moving toward Lithuania, she is not swayed by shouts from the officers. I hear over the radio – deter, do not let her enter. The mother with the child is not afraid of the dog, and asks to be admitted into Lithuania while hugging a child, to show mercy.”
“The woman holds an IV drip in her hands, allegedly being administered to the child. But once approached, officers think it is a lie and continue fulfilling the orders of the Interior Ministry – to deter.”
“The woman with the child does not move, the officers raise them by their armpits and carry them toward Belarus, the child is crying.”
“A group of people stand, asking ‘how can we legally enter Lithuania’, but the officers shout ‘go away’. The people do not go anywhere, and now with deterrence measures officers do not let the people enter Lithuania.”
According to Valentinavičius, Belarusian border guards used gunshots to force people over the border.
“At 05:30, sounds of shots from automatic rifles in the air from Belarusian border are heard. They line up [at the border] equipped with helmets, batons, and shields. The sounds of shots in the air do not go silent.
“Unable to return the people [to Belarus] in the same place, Lithuanian officers put them on a bus and take them to the 125–126 border sign where the people are led by shouts ‘go, go’ toward Belarus.”
“The people slowly move toward Belarus with shouts from [border] officers and the military”.
Valentinavičius noted in the post that Lithuanian border guards did not use violence against the migrants.
Read more: Video shows migrants stuck on Belarusian–Lithuanian border
Over 4,000 irregular migrants – mostly Iraqi citizens – have crossed into Lithuania from Belarus irregularly so far this year.
Lithuania has a state-level extreme situation declared over the migration influx which it says is being orchestrated by the Belarusian regime.
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