June 18, Pozirk. Lithuanian border guards, assisted by a service dog, tracked down a group of 12 undocumented migrants in a swamp on June 16 and forced them back into Belarus.
According to Lithuania’s State Border Guard Service, officers determined that the migrants were not in danger and decided to return them to Belarus. “This was done on the territory of the same Čepkeliai State Nature Reserve,” the agency said.
Pushbacks — the practice of forcing migrants and asylum seekers back across borders without due process — are generally considered illegal under international law.
The agency said all 12 migrants were between 19 and 30 years old and carried no identification documents. They claimed to be citizens of Burundi. According to the border service, the group had sleeping bags, warm clothing, raincoats and a substantial supply of food.
Most of those questioned said they were students studying in Russia and were attempting to reach Germany or Belgium.
The migrants had chosen to cross through the Čepkeliai swamp because the area is not equipped with a fence or barbed-wire barriers. However, border guards detected the group using a surveillance system, the State Border Guard Service said.
Belarus’ westerns neighbors reported 1,300 attempts by third-country nationals to cross into the European Union outside official checkpoints in the first half of June, with Latvia alone thwarting 1,286 attempts.
Overall, migration intensity has decreased since June 2025, when 3,745 attempts were recorded in the first half of June with Poland being the main target.
The flow of people desperate to cross into the EU surged in spring 2021 after Alaksandar Łukašenka, angered by EU sanctions, had indicated that Minsk would not prevent asylum seekers from Africa and Asia from using Belarus as a route to the EU.
In June 2021, the Belarusian government suspended a readmission agreement with the EU in response to sanctions that followed the forced landing of a Ryanair flight in Minsk.
Latvia, Lithuania and Poland call the migration crisis a “hybrid attack” orchestrated by Minsk and Moscow.
