Lithuania is creative in handling migrants

Lithuania’s first and last king Mindaugas was crowned approximately thirty years after the end of Estonia’s ancient struggle for freedom, in 1253. This day, July 6, is celebrated as the day of Lithuania’s statehood since the 1990s. The migrants who illegally crossed Lithuania’s border with Belarus have nothing to do with King Mindaugas’ heritage; they have to spend their time in a camp of tents.

Pabradé, a town with 5,000 residents half an hour’s drive away from Vilnius, has become one of the examples of Lithuania’s migration crisis. Since it is a public holiday, there are only a few border guards monitoring the camp. As soon as we stop at the center’s gate, a law enforcement officer without a name tag steps up and asks not take photographs of the migrants. Since the superiors are away, outside observers cannot be let in.

Pabradé has become one of the examples of Lithuania’s migration crisis. Photo: Konstantin Sednev

Stress in the main migration center

According to the officer on holiday duty, the Pabradé camp houses already 380 migrants. There is some room left, but the camp generally looks like a sardine can. Behind a triple fence dozens and dozens of tents are tightly packed together on a sandy field, all for single men. Families are housed in a building with running water.

The Lithuanian border guard warned the journalist on arrival in Lithuania and after reaching the camp that the migrants from Congo, Cameroon, Guinea, Iran and Syria may be aggressive and unwilling to communicate with the press.

Pabradė. Photo: Konstantin Sednev

There have been conflicts between the migrants and the law enforcement officers and the officer on holiday duty predicts that more are coming. One of the reasons is the total language barrier. “We speak our language and they speak theirs. There will certainly be more conflicts,” the border guard says.

The Lithuanian border guard was right. As soon as we approach the outer fence with a camera or just look that way curiously, we provoke a furious reaction in a foreign language. The migrants playing checkers in front of their tents are unwilling to be captured in a picture and a number of them cover their heads with towels. “None of your business what is going on here,” one of them says.

If we try once more to ask how they got to Pabradé or about their daily life, the Lithuanian border guard interferes and forbids any contacts with the migrants. “I believe that you are journalists but you may not talk to them. You can take pictures, this is OK,” the patrol tells us. I ask, why. The patrol explains that talking to migrants could contribute to escape attempts.

Photo: Konstantin Sednev

Photo: Konstantin Sednev

We may only talk to the migrants this side of the gate if they should use their right to leave the center for a couple of hours. Thus we talk to Russian citizen Igor, who returns from a grocery shop and has been living in the Pabradé center since September. Igor says that he could live in a proper house before the migration crisis but was now resettled outdoors. “As soon as the masses from Arabia came, I had to move to a tent,” he says.

“This camp is a disaster, several tents are unsuitable for use, living conditions are very bad,” says the Catholic Igor, who came deliberately to Lithuania, since this is a Catholic country. He has not been allowed to leave the camp so far.

Photo: Konstantin Sednev

Vydeniai. Photo: Konstantin Sednev

Last arrivals live in public buildings

As of yesterday (July 5) the Lithuanian border guard had intercepted 1,363 illegal migrants from Belarus. To compare: there were 81 such migrants in 2020 and 46 in 2019. “We can assure that the largest share of the migrants has recently arrived in Belarus by direct flights from Istanbul and Baghdad, says the Lithuanian Border Guard spokesman Rokas Puskinas.

Although it is widely known that the migrants have been directed to Lithuania by the Belarus authorities as a form of retaliation for sanctions, the Lithuanian Border Guard is unwilling to confirm it. “As for their arrival to the Lithuanian border from Minsk, our intelligence service knows it. We cannot disclose it because the investigation is in progress.”

Vydeniai. Photo: Konstantin Sednev

Since the plan to build another large refugee camp besides Pabradé has not been realized, creative approach to the problem has housed the migrants in schools and culture centers. One example is the Vydeniai village close to the border. Its closed schoolhouse overnight became a home for 150 migrants who have to spend ten-day quarantine in the abandoned building.

Unlike the guarded refugee center in Pabradé, the Vydeniai school is without a triple security fence and the journalists are welcomed. The atmosphere in the center is also totally different from that of Pabradé. Only six police officers are guarding the schoolhouse, standing by the exits and keeping an eye on the migrants. The officers state that the migrants have been at their best behavior in Vydeniai and the small staff can cope all right.

Since it is hot and close in the schoolhouse, many migrants hang about by the main door. A chest-high trash heap has also appeared there, mainly disposable food packages which the wind tends to carry away. The migrants from Congo and Guinea do not mind being photographed and all answer that they hope for a better life in the future.

Gafi from Congo has the advantage of speaking Russian which is a highly useful skill in his situation. Gafi, bared to the waist, wearing a silver chain and sporting blonde hair, tells about his difficult journey to the Lithuanian border through Belarus forests.

“We have been in this school for three days but our life here is better. It was bad in Belarus, because the locals were racist and hostile to us. We did not want to live there and therefore decided to undertake the journey to live like all people do,” he explains in broken Russian.

Photo: Konstantin Sednev

Lithuania can only alleviate the consequences

Margiris Meilutis, a journalist of the 15min news portal, who has been covering the migration crisis from the beginning, recalls that the situation did not seen worrisome as recently as in early June but all threat assessments of the presumed migration crisis have been surpassed within a month. “I do not believe that anyone could have guessed that the situation would escalate that far,” says Meilutis, who admits that the Lithuanian government and the people are worried.

Meilutis says that Lithuania cannot overcome the Belarus extortion alone and can only address the consequences of the problem: housing the migrants, handling their asylum applications and sending them back home. While the first problem can be solved with the help of the national crisis reserve, the second consequence is more difficult to handle.

“Half of the migrants claim to be coming from Iraq but Lithuania has no diplomatic relations with Iraq. Even if their asylum applications are rejected, they cannot be sent back to Iraq. Not a single migrant has so far been deported home,” Meilutis sums up Lithuania’s problem.

Pabradė. Photo: Konstantin Sednev