Latvian Interior Minister Describes Migrants From Belarus As Fake Refugees

Latvian Interior Minister Marija Golubeva said on Thursday that the irregular migrants crossing from Belarus to Lithuania were not "real" refugees and that Riga is determined to protect its borders from impostors

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 05th August, 2021) Latvian Interior Minister Marija Golubeva said on Thursday that the irregular migrants crossing from Belarus to Lithuania were not "real" refugees and that Riga is determined to protect its borders from impostors.

"They are not real refugees, they are not victims of war and other situations when it is necessary to run and save a life. Basically, these are people who bought a flight ticket to appear in a particular place and cross the border. We cannot just watch how it happens no matter what motives they have. We must defend our borders," Golubeva said, as quoted by LSM, a unified news portal of the Latvian radio and television.

If migrants move toward Latvia, the minister called on border guards to deploy all legal measures to prevent them from entering the country.

"If someone has grounds to apply for a shelter, we cannot ignore it. But we will check very, very seriously whether it is true," Golubeva said, arguing that the surge in migration has been created by an outer force as a tool of manipulation against the European Union.

The Latvian border with Belarus is mainly protected by the landscape, including rivers and swamps, and the Latvian government wants to accelerate the construction of a fence and other barriers on the border based the situation in Lithuania, the minister said.

On July 2, Lithuania declared an emergency over the influx of illegal migrants from Belarus, many of them Iraqis, Iranians and Syrians. Lithuanian politicians and several leading EU officials have accused the Belarusian government of facilitating the movement of migrants across the border with Lithuania as retaliation for the European Union's decision to impose sanctions on Minsk. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said that his country would not contain the flow of illegal migrants to the EU, as it does not have the capacity due to the sanctions.