Lithuanian Interior Minister Turns To Prosecutors Over Anti-Asylum Rally At Training Site

(@FahadShabbir)

Lithuanian Interior Minister Turns to Prosecutors Over Anti-Asylum Rally at Training Site

Lithuanian Interior Minister Agne Bilotaite said on Tuesday that she has appealed to the Prosecutor General's Office after activists blocked the road to the Rudninkai military training ground set to host asylum seekers

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 27th July, 2021) Lithuanian Interior Minister Agne Bilotaite said on Tuesday that she has appealed to the Prosecutor General's Office after activists blocked the road to the Rudninkai military training ground set to host asylum seekers.

Bilotaite said on Monday that the authorities planned to set up a tent camp for some 1,500 asylum seekers at the military training site. The announcement sparked a public outcry, with protesters blocking access to Rudninkai, which ended up in clashes with police trying to clear the road.

"Such actions are unacceptable in such a militarized facility with a special status. Therefore, I turned to both the police department and the Prosecutor General's Office with a request to start a pre-trial investigation and assess this whole situation," Bilotaite said, as quoted by the LRT broadcaster.

What happened near the training site was a clear provocation and not a peaceful demonstration, the minister added, noting that the protesters broke into the site's premises, attacked officials, and set fire to tires.

Lithuania has recently become a new "eastern frontline" for irregular migration due to the massive influx of illegal migrants many of them Iraqis, Iranians and Syrians from Belarus. On July 2, the Baltic country declared an emergency over the worsening situation. According to the latest official statistics, the authorities have detained over 2,800 migrants since early 2021, which is 35 times more than in the whole of 2020.