Europe’s Latest Migrant Border Dispute is Between Belarus, Lithuania

The original uploader was Groubani at English Wikipedia., CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Lithuania is orange; Belarus is green

U.S. news can make it seem, at times, as if this country holds the world’s only license over border disputes about unauthorized migration. It doesn’t.

Over in Europe, there is a hotly contested border dispute going on between Belarus and Lithuania.

Here’s what you need to know: Lithuania is part of the European Union; Belarus is not. Belarus, you may recall, is the home of the authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko. It’s also the country that recently diverted a European plane in order to abduct a dissident journalist. Yeah, that’s all Belarus.

So, the EU has been sanctioning Belarus because of the plane/journalist stunt. And Belarus is displeased. Their response to the sanctions, as the AP reports, has been to threaten to loosen border controls for undocumented migrants who want into Lithuania (and, thereby, the EU). And, indeed, the number of unauthorized border crossers between the two nations is on an uptick.

You might think these migrants are all Belarus citizens fleeing oppression, but in fact they’ve been from all over the globe, including Afghanistan, Cameroon, Iraq, and Syria.

The EU has promised to send border guards to Lithuania (and nearby Latvia) to help with the recent surge in migration.

-KitJ