The Lithuanian government filed a case with the UN International Court of Justice, requiring Belarus to be held accountable for organizing massive entry of migrants by the Belarusian regime, according to the Lithuanian Foreign Ministry’s press release. The report continues that since 2021, Lithuania has seen an ‘unprecedented surge in the arrival of illegal migrants from Belarus’.
The Lithuanian border control services and police have collected sufficient evidence, which Vilnius claims proves Minsk’s active role in organizing these flows. In particular, Belarus allegedly expanded air links with countries of the Middle East, organized issuing visas for nationals of these states, booked their accommodation and then further transportation to the Lithuanian border that the migrants had to cross illegally.
The second problem is that the Belarusian border patrol forces failed to collaborate with the Lithuanian authorities in suppressing and regulating illegal migration. Lithuania sees this as explicit evidence that the migration crisis was used as an instrument of political pressure because of the support for the Belarusian opposition and calls for democratic changes in Belarus by Vilnius and Brussels.
In the case filed in the International Court of Justice, Lithuania is asking Belarus to compensate fully for the damages suffered as a result of the crisis, including economic expenses for the construction of a barrier along the common border. The Lithuanian side also needs such official guarantees that similar actions will never be repeated.
The border migration crisis occurred in the spring of 2021, when thousands of African and Middle Eastern residents who came to Belarus tried to get to Poland and Lithuania. Alexander Lukashenko said that Minsk would not disrupt the migration transit to Europe because, according to his view, the European countries ‘declared a hybrid war’ against Belarus.
