Armed incident on Latvia's Belarus border: smugglers threaten soldiers with pistol-like object
On Monday, three people smugglers pelted Latvian soldiers with stones at the Belarus border, and one threatened them with a pistol-like object. Border guards say Latvia now faces its highest level of illegal migration since 2021.
A serious incident took place on Monday at Latvia's border with Belarus: three people smugglers who had brought a group of 20 migrants to the frontier threw stones at Latvian soldiers who arrived at the scene. One of the masked men pulled out an object resembling a pistol and threatened to shoot. The soldiers withdrew, and the migrants went back to Belarus. The episode matters because Latvia is facing its strongest illegal migration pressure since 2021, when Lithuania and Poland bore the brunt of the crisis.
Pressure on the border
The Baltic states and Brussels describe the situation as a campaign coordinated by Minsk with Moscow's assistance. Arturs Pupins, head of the Silene border guard post, says eight people who crossed illegally were detained just this morning. Estonian and Lithuanian officers have also been deployed to help patrol the Latvian side.
Pupins says it is impossible to know who stands on the other side of the fence, a migrant or a disguised soldier. He believes it may be a provocation or an escalation, but stresses this is only his opinion. The incident comes amid warnings from NATO intelligence agencies and European and US officials about possible Russian and Belarusian escalation against the Baltic states.
Evidence and damage
At the border guard headquarters in Daugavpils, officers show photographs taken from migrants' phones, including Belarusian officials with migrants in a forest. Border guards have also located camps using drones. Valdis Jukšs, head of the Daugavpils border guards, says operating in the restricted border zone would be impossible without Belarusian officials' knowledge.
This year officers have recorded 10 cases of damage to electrical boxes and 11 cases of damaged cameras, while around a dozen further cameras and sensors were stolen. Videos posted on TikTok show smugglers speaking Arabic and Kurdish; at least some are believed to have links to organised crime.
Figures and human cost
Since 2021, Latvia has turned back 52,184 people, and 1,143 were admitted on humanitarian grounds. Almost all of those cases occurred in 2023, when most people were families with children; today most migrants are young men. On Wednesday a 42-year-old Bangladeshi man found in Latvia needing medical help died in hospital. He held a work visa for Belarus.
Human rights groups have criticised Latvia for restricting access to the border for NGOs and the media, so it remains unclear whether violent incidents are isolated or systematic.
