Angel* used to be promised a European schooling. He ended up dropping his leg.
Facing ethnic strife and grinding poverty in his local Sri Lanka, the 20-year-old used to be lured to Belarus by way of an ad for a global research programme, providing a go back and forth to Paris.
It became out to be pretend – a lure laid by way of Belarus’s govt, he claims – and the promise of a loose visa to Europe used to be if truth be told mountaineering thru a hollow within the Lithuania border fence underneath the moonlight.
Dressed simplest in a summer time jacket and cotton sneakers, Angel and a couple of others wandered for days and nights within the wooded border space, buffeted by way of icy winds and sub-zero temperatures.
He ultimately made it to Vilnius airport however used to be detained by way of Lithuanian border guards. His leg used to be riddled with gangrene, having succumbed to frostbite all over the adventure. It used to be amputated in clinic days later.
Angel is simply one of the crucial sufferers of Europe’s forgotten migration disaster.
At least 3 migrants have misplaced their legs to frostbite in contemporary months, with many extra struggling debilitating accidents to their fingers and toes that will likely be with them ceaselessly.
What is inflicting the border disaster?
A large number of finger-pointing is happening over what’s at the back of the disaster.
Authorities in Lithuania – in addition to the EU – position the blame squarely at the shoulders of Belarus, claiming it has weaponised migrants in retaliation for sanctions slapped on Minsk by way of the bloc in 2020.
“The Belarusian regime is the organiser of this ongoing irregular migration crisis,” Lithuania’s inner ministry mentioned in a observation despatched to Euronews.
“Migrants are being used as a tool to create chaos, not only in our own country or in neighbouring countries, but throughout the European Union.”
The ministry claimed Belarus is the use of migration as a “form of hybrid aggression” in opposition to Lithuania, which has driven just about 11,000 other folks again around the borders to this point this 12 months.
Belarussian officers were accused of reducing holes in Lithuania’s sprawling razor-wire fence and pushing massive teams of migrants thru, in addition to guiding them to vulnerable spots.
Last month, Lithuanian inner minister Agne Bilotaitė claimed Belarus used to be sending migrants around the border barefoot and with out right kind wintry weather clothes in an try to ramp up power at the Baltic nation. She maintained this might now not be grounds to be granted access into Lithuania.
But Vilnius has now not escaped scrutiny.
Lithuanian border guards were time and again accused of violently pushing migrants again into Belarus, and worse.
During his time within the border space, Angel claims he encountered Lithuanian officers who despatched him away with out clothes or any roughly help, in spite of their perilous place.
Other experiences counsel that even if migrants obtain clinical help in Lithuania they’re robotically taken again to Belarus afterwards.
Officials deny this.
“Lithuanian border guards always organise emergency medical assistance to irregular border crossers when needed,” wrote the inner ministry in its observation. “Foreigners are also given a humanitarian package containing the necessary equipment, dry rations and water, as well as winter footwear and clothing”.
“If the situation is really serious, the border guards call an ambulance,” it added.
‘Ping-pong pushbacks’
Claiming it’s underneath assault, Lithuania’s govt has followed a pushback coverage, the place migrants are averted from coming into the rustic or in an instant expelled in the event that they controlled to damage thru.
This has given upward thrust to a phenomenon referred to as ping-pong pushbacks, the place migrants are batted from side to side around the two nation’s borders over and over, from time to time inside of the similar night time.
Many professionals have identified that that is unlawful.
“This official policy of the government is definitely not in compliance with international human rights or refugee law,” Mėta Adutavičiūtė, head of advocacy at Lithuania’s Human Rights Monitoring Institute, told Euronews.
Under the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, those arriving in a country have a right to claim asylum, with the country’s authorities then deciding on whether to give them protection or not.
Lithuania, an EU member state, is a signatory of this treaty.
“Even if it’s the case [that Belarus is] instrumentalising migration, we still need to look at the human rights aspect and still uphold our international obligations,” continued Adutavičiūtė.
“People should at least be given the chance to apply for asylum and have their applications duly considered,” she claimed.
Lithuanian officials claim the exceptional situation on their borders, allows them to temporarily suspend certain legal protections.
Viewing migrants on Lithuania’s borders as a weapon is having a much wider effect on society.
“When the government says the country is under hybrid attack by the Belarussian regime it turns the people who are trying to cross the borders into a threat,” says Adutavičiūtė, including that this “securitisation” prevents society from looking at the situation in the border as a “humanitarian factor”.
Negative attitudes towards refugees and migrants — bar those from Ukraine — have grown in Lithuania in recent years, with increasing numbers of Lithuanians associating them with criminality.
‘Big humanitarian issue’
Meanwhile, men, women and children find themselves trapped in a brutal no man’s land, often in dire humanitarian need.
“Pushbacks lead to human tragedies, particularly in such harsh climate prerequisites,” Adutavičiūtė told Euronews. “Even if it is a reaction to Belarus’s weaponisation of migrants, they put other folks’s lives at risk.”
“When persons are caught within the woodland, they wish to come to a decision whether or not to gentle the hearth and heat themselves up and be noticed … or keep within the freezing chilly. It’s for sure an enormous humanitarian factor.
“This cannot continue,” she added.
Adutavičiūtė claims that pushbacks are driven by a broader deterrence strategy, the idea that if conditions are made worse enough, and the border crossing made hard enough, people will not make the perilous journey.
But this assumes migrants voluntarily migrate.
“People flee for all kinds of reasons, but usually because they can’t stay. People are coming from Syria, Afghanistan, Yemen, Eritrea and so on.”
The three have been blighted by conflict and political instability in recent years, while Eritrea struggles with chronic issues around food, work and a repressive government, which often forces people into open-ended conscription in the military.
Many migrants also say there is a lack of legal routes to enter the EU, with many forms of visa prohibitively expensive, heavily oversubscribed or non-existent.
Where does responsibility lie for the situation on the Lithuania-Belarus border?
Though there are some who are extending a helping hand.
A group of volunteers – known as Sienos Grupė — provide humanitarian aid to people stuck in the border zone, staying awake through the night so they respond to any distress calls and bring food, warm clothes, sleeping bags, chargers or whatever migrants may need.
“We as simple volunteers, normal people, we felt from the heart that it is necessary to act,” said Lina Žemaitytė, a volunteer at the organisation.
Other EU member states and the bloc itself are involved, too.
“Of course, support in terms of both human resources and technical assistance has been received from many countries and organisations,” said Andrius Jarackas, a spokesman for Lithuania’s State Border Guard Service, with joint operations coordinated by Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency.
He also said that Estonia, Poland and Austria had given “technical support” to Lithuania on a bilateral basis, while “most EU member states “provided support to ensure adequate accommodation conditions for the irregular migrants.”
In June, Amnesty International released a report claiming that thousands of people have been arbitrarily detained in militarised centres, where they were subjected to inhumane conditions, torture and other ill-treatment.
Other experts claim that the responsibility of the EU for this crisis runs much deeper.
Most migrants – like Angel – wanted to go to northern European states, like France or Germany, with Lithuania being just a stop-gap.
“Responsibility lies first of all with Belarus and, at the same time, with the governments of border countries in how they respond,” mentioned Adutavičiūtė. “However, there might have been some solutions, like perhaps sharing the burden [across the EU] with a quota system.”
“There should be much more effort on the part of the EU to convince the governments of the border states to reconsider their response, taking into account humanitarian and human rights issues.
“Even in occasions of emergency,” she added.
* Angel’s name has been changed to protect his identity.
