Unrest broke out at a migrant camp in Lithuania's Rūdnininkai on Tuesday night, the Interior Ministry said. It was contained after additional police forces were called in.
“Unrest broke out at the camp in Rūdninkai, police forces were brought in, even though they are patrolling there constantly,” Interior Ministry spokesman Mindaugas Bajarūnas told BNS on Tuesday night. “The situation has been stabilised.”
He added that a border guard helicopter was used to monitor the situation at the tent camp built on a military training ground in south-eastern Lithuania.
According to him, people housed at the camp were unhappy with living conditions and tensions were brewing since last weekend.
Interior Minister Agnė Bilotaitė later said that around 20 migrants fled the camp during the unrest, but were later returned.
Bilotaitė also claimed that the unrest at the migrant camp was linked to a riot that broke out on Tuesday night outside the Lithuanian parliament, Seimas, in Vilnius.
“We now see two well-organised actions, one outside the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania, and other events that took place in Rūdninkai. It shows that things are organised and coordinated,” the minister told reporters in the early hours of Wednesday from the parliament.
She did not comment on who, in her opinion, organised the unrest nor explained why she thought there was a connection. She called both events “anti-state activity”.
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