2021–2022 Belarus–European Union border crisis

The 2021 Belarus–European Union migrant crisis (Lithuanian: [2021 m. migrantų krizė Lietuvoje] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)) is a migrant crisis caused by an increase of Middle Eastern and African migrants (mainly from Iraq) to Lithuania, Latvia, and Poland through those countries' borders with Belarus. The crisis was caused by bad relations between the European Union and Belarus, following the 2020 Belarusian presidential election, the 2020–2021 Belarusian protests, the Ryanair Flight 4978 incident, and the attempted repatriation of Krystsina Tsimanouskaya.

2021 Belarus-European Union border crisis
Part of the European migrant crisis
2021 Belarus–European Union border crisis. Routes of illegal migrants are shown
Date	7 July 2021 – present (4 years, 6 months, 1 week and 3 days)
Location	Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Poland
Caused by	Deterioration in Belarus–EU relations following the 2020 Belarusian presidential election and 2020–2021 Belarusian protests Sanctions against Belarus following the forced landing of Ryanair Flight 4978

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Border markers with a fence on the Lithuanian side.

Lithuanian officials said the crisis was a hybrid warfare by human trafficking of migrants to Lithuania and the rest of the European Union.

In Poland

File:Grenzsteine Belarus Polen.jpg

The Belarus–Poland border

On 12 July 2021, Polish President Andrzej Duda stated that Poland will provide assistance to Lithuania. In July 2021, Poland sent a humanitarian aid to Lithuania. Following the granting of shelter to an Olympic athlete Krystsina Tsimanouskaya and her husband, Poland also accused Belarus of organizing a hybrid warfare as the number of migrants crossing the Belarus–Poland border sharply increased multiple times when compared to the 2020 statistics.

As Belarus-Poland relations got worse further, migrants from Belarus began to enter Poland. On 6 August 2021, Poland reported 133 illegal crossings from Belarus over two days, which is more than the total number in the previous year, with the total number of illegal crossings to date being 552. On 9 August, Poland reported an additional 349 migrant arrivals over the weekend.

In early August 2021, a group of 32 Afghans and 41 Iraqi Kurds appeared on the border in the aftermath of the fall of Kabul (2021) and were denied entry to either country, resulting in lines of military personnel on each side isolating the encamped migrants. Their appearance follows an influx of thousands of mostly Middle Eastern migrants that had crossed the border from Belarus into Poland and other eastern EU members Latvia and Lithuania in the months leading up to the fall of Kabul, with the EU claiming that Belarus purposefully engineered the migration in response to union sanctions. While the Belarusian government denied this accusation, Poland called it a "hybrid attack" on the bloc and said the migrants should not be allowed entry because they are technically still in Belarus. After the migrants sought asylum assistance, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) summoned Poland and Latvia to provide them "food, water, clothing, adequate medical care and, if possible, temporary shelter" for three weeks, according to a statement from the court on 25 August, although neither country was ordered to allow the migrants past the border.

Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia released a joint statement, condemning the hybrid warfare of sending migrants over the borders. Since 18 August, 2021, Polish Armed Forces were sent to secure border with Belarus. As a response to the migrant crisis, Poland is building a wall in its border with Belarus.

2021–2022 Belarus–European Union Border Crisis Media

• Lithuania - Migrant Influx EU Civil Protection Mechanism response (cropped).jpg

  Migrant influx into Lithuania provoked by the border crisis

• Border markers with a fence on the Lithuanian side in 2015, before the construction of a new barrier.

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  Uniform and equipment of Belarusian military men on a video published on 5 August resemble Internal Troops of Belarus (photo taken during 2020 protests in Minsk)

• Lithuania Belarus border barrier in 2023.jpg

  Border barrier built by Lithuania in 2022-2023

• Latvijas-Baltkrievijas robeža Krāslavas novadā.jpg

  Latvian border barrier and patrols in 2023

• 20220630 Zapora na granicy polsko-białoruskiej 004.jpg

  A border barrier constructed by Poland, 2022

• Belarus-Poland border (en).png

  Map of the Belarus–Poland border.     Border checkpoints     Simplified border checkpoints

• Bezpieczna granica to taka na ktorej nikt nie ginie.jpg

  People in Warsaw take part in a protest rally on 17 October in solidarity with migrants who have been pushed back at Poland's border with Belarus. The sign reads"A safe border is one where no one dies!"

• Bēgļi uz Latvijas—Baltkrievijas robežas 2022. gada februārī.jpg

  A group of migrants on the Latvia–Belarus border in February 2022