EU condemns Belarus for 'direct attack' using migrants

BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union on Wednesday condemned what it called Belarus’s “aggressive behavior” in organizing illegal border crossings with migrants into Latvia, Lithuania and Poland with the aim of destabilizing the 27-nation bloc.

So far this year, more than 4,100 asylum-seekers, most of them from Iraq, have illegally crossed from Belarus into Lithuania. That’s 50 times more than during all of 2020. They're being sheltered in temporary camps across the Baltic EU member.

Poland said Wednesday it had deployed nearly 1,000 troops to its border with Belarus to help border guards cope with a surge of migrants — again mostly from Iraq — who were trying to enter the country.

“This aggressive behavior … is unacceptable and amounts to a direct attack aimed at destabilizing and pressurizing the EU,” said a statement by Slovenia, which holds the bloc’s rotating presidency until the end of the year, after emergency talks among the bloc's interior ministers.

“The European Union will need to further consider its response to these situations in order to increase its effectiveness and to deter any future attempts to instrumentalize illegal migration in this manner," the statement said.

The migrant movements spiked dramatically after the EU slapped sanctions on Belarus officials. The measures were imposed after President Alexander Lukashenko ordered a crackdown on opponents and protesters after claiming victory in a vote last year that the West denounced as rigged. His main election challenger fled to Lithuania.

Slovenia said EU nations are “determined to take all necessary measures to effectively protect all the EU external borders, by counteracting Belarus’ aggression.” They also “recognize the need to strengthen the entire external border of the European Union to...