Belarus is pushing migrants to travel to Lithuania barefoot to put pressure on the border guards, Interior Minister Agnė Bilotaitė claimed on Wednesday.
"We have information about nine people who were in this condition in November. They were inappropriately dressed or were held on the Belarusian side," Interior Minister Agne Bilotaitė told reporters, adding that two such migrants are still receiving hospital treatment.
This follows an earlier account of a Sri Lankan national losing a leg to frostbite after being stuck in the forest between Belarus and Lithuania for days.
After Lithuania adopted the policy of so-called pushbacks last year, migrants channelled by Belarus toward Lithuania, Latvia, and Poland have been stuck between the borders. Several have died in Poland and Belarus, although no deaths have been recorded in Latvia and Lithuania.
Baltic and EU officials accuse Minsk of orchestrating the crisis in response to sanctions, which were placed against the Minsk regime in the wake of its crackdown on the opposition.
Read more: Migration crisis in Baltics and Poland
According to the minister, small tent camps have now been set up in Belarus for the migrants.
"They are deliberately kept there, not released. They are not provided with [warm clothes], they are not accustomed to winter conditions," the minister said.
According to her, Lithuanian border guards provide people with humanitarian packages that include warm clothes and footwear.
"[But] the fact that people arrive at the border barefoot will not be a reason to let them in," Bilotaitė said, adding that each asylum case is assessed on an individual basis.
She added that four out of nine individuals who were placed in hospitals were offered a chance to apply for asylum.
“But our message is that such attempts will not be a reason to enter Lithuania," Bilotaite said.
She also called on international organisations to get involved.
"I have contacted the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the Red Cross to draw their attention to the problems and to ensure that the situation of irregular migrants is taken care of," the minister said.
Meanwhile, Rimantas Petrauskas, deputy commander of Lithuania's State Border Guard Service said they had several thousand humanitarian packages ready for the winter, which include food, clothing and footwear.
Lithuanian border guards have also noticed that the number of local border guards in Belarus on its border with Lithuania has almost doubled.
"We used to see two or three border guards within one patrol, but now have lately seen four or five," he said, adding that it's difficult to identify the reasons for such changes.
Lithuanian officers have prevented 45 migrants from entering Lithuania from Belarus irregularly over the past 24 hours. The border guards have recorded over 10,600 pushbacks since January.
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