Belarus Dictator Floods EU With Migrants In Retaliation

The embattled Belarusian dictator has made good on his threat to flood the European Union with migrants by sending hundreds of Iraqis on ‘package holidays’ to neighbouring Lithuania in retaliation for sanctions.

Lithuania, an EU nation which shares a 700-kilometre border with Belarus, felt the pain days after Alexander Lukashenko issued the threat in late May.

Local border guards, who used to catch a few dozen trespassers a year, started to stumble upon groups of several dozen people every day, who would surrender and say they were looking for refuge in the European Union.

Lithuania this year received over 507 migrants, mostly Iraqi men, from Belarus, six times higher than last year’s number. Most of them arrived over the last three weeks.

Mantas Adomenas, Lithuania’s deputy foreign minister said they see that this flow of migrants is regulated by Belarusian authorities as a tool of political pressure, a means of hostile hybrid warfare.

Speaking to the Sunday Telegraph, he said they are dealing with a dictator who is increasingly on the edge of madness and is prepared to do absolutely unspeakable and unpredictable things.”

Mr Lukashenko was re-elected last year in a rigged vote that triggered months of unprecedented protests in the former Soviet country.

His crackdown on the opposition reached a new low at the end of May when Belarusian authorities forced a Ryanair flight to land in Minsk, arresting a dissident journalist who was on board.

Europe responded with tough sanctions, including banning Belarusian flights from EU airspace. Lukashenko said he would have his revenge.

Authorities in Lithuania had to pitch dozens of heated tents in a makeshift migrant processing centre to accommodate the asylum seekers and are now considering building a wall with Belarus which will cost about €15 million.