Border guards at the Šalčininkai checkpoint on Lithuania’s border with Belarus have turned back five Africans who were seeking asylum, an NGOs says.
According to the State Border Guard Service (VSAT), the five foreigners arrived at Šalčininkai late Sunday night.
“Document checks revealed that the Sudanese and Kenyan citizens – two men, two women and one minor – were trying to enter Lithuania. They had passports of their countries, but they did not have Schengen visas and did not meet the conditions for entry into the Schengen area, so these persons could not be admitted,” Giedrius Mišutis, spokesman for the VSAT, told BNS on Monday.
According to him, the migrants were ordered to return to Belarus and did so “without any major incidents or conflicts”.
The NGO Sienos Grupė, which provides assistance to migrants on the Lithuanian border, claims that the foreigners were seeking asylum, but border guards refused to accept their applications.
“Although the Lithuanian authorities regularly state that border guards have the competence to make sure that people are not seeking asylum, we are faced with the exact opposite situation,” the NGO’s head Mantautas Šulskus told BNS. “This time, the asylum seekers arrived exactly as they are told to do when they are turned back in the forest, and they arrived at the border checkpoint.”
Sienos Grupė has received an audio recording from the Sudanese and Kenyan nationals in which one of the women is asking for asylum in English, repeating the word “asylum”, but the man who is talking to her says he does not understand what she is saying.
BNS has also heard the recording, but cannot independently confirm its authenticity.
Mišutis insists “there was no explicit request [for asylum]”.
“I haven’t heard the recording, it is not clear where it was made, under what circumstances, under what conditions. We treat their non-entry into Lithuania as legitimate,” he said.
Lithuania began pushing back foreigners trying to enter the country irregularly in 2021 following an influx of migrants from Belarus. Since then, Lithuanian border guards have stopped migrants more than 23,100 times, according to the VSAT. Some of them have attempted to cross the border more than once.
The VSAT have said that people who wish to request asylum in Lithuania should do so through “legal channels”, such as at embassies or checkpoints.
Correction: the previous version of this article incorrectly stated that the foreign nationals tried to request asylum at the Medininkai border crossing.
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