The government of European Union member state Latvia on Tuesday (September 19) closed one of its two border crossing points with neighboring Belarus.

In Latvia, 50 officers currently work at the Silene border station, located some 20 kilometers southeast of Daugavpils, Latvia's second-largest city. They will be redeployed to guard the actual 180-kilometer-long Belarusian-Latvian border, whose situation Latvia's border guard chief has described as "the most tense situation since 2021" due to an influx of migrants from Belarus, news agency Reuters reported.

Shortly after she became Latvia's new Prime Minister last Friday, Evika Silina accused Minsk of again using migrants as a "hybrid threat" to undermine the Baltic state's security. Poland and other EU countries blame the increase in arrivals, on Belarussian ruler Alexander Lukashenko and Russia, saying they orchestrate the "influx" in an attempt to destabilize the European Union. 

Stranded at the border

Since August 2021, estimates suggest tens of thousands of mainly Middle Eastern migrants have crossed or tried to cross the European Union's external border into Latvia, Lithuania or Poland.

The ensuing humanitarian crisis left thousands stranded in border regions for months. Some of them were exposed to freezing weather conditions for weeks. Grupa Granica, an NGO network monitoring the situation of migrants at the Polish-Belarusian border, says that at least 37 migrants have died in the border region since August 2021.

Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, all members of NATO and the EU, eventually resorted to illegal pushbacks and declaring states of emergency, policies that remain in place with the exception of Lithuania and Poland who have both lifted their declared states of emergencies.

Read more: Poland to beef up security on Belarus border with 10,000 additional troops

Close to 1,000 forcible returns in six days

According to Reuters citing Latvian news wire LETA, border guards have turned back 894 people attempting to cross the border in the last six days. These attempts reportedly brought September's total to 1,773.

"Border tensions are increasing, and Belarus is engaging more and more in such a hybrid threat, that we have an increasing number of illegal travelers," Latvian Prime Minister Evika Silina told reporters.

The border crossing point has been closed to "send signals internationally," she added.

However, Reuters reported that the Belarusian border guard on Tuesday said on its website the crossing point in Silene remained open, adding that Latvia had not informed it of any changes.

Poland and Lithuania have fenced their borders with Belarus and the new Latvian government has pledged to finish its own fence by the end of the year.

Belarus is not only a close ally of Russia, it also allowed Russian armed forces to use its territory as a staging post for the invasion of Ukraine, Belarus' neighbor to the South. In May this year, Russia deployed tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus; and in July, battle-hardened Wagner mercenaries reportedly moved to Belarus.

Read more: Latvian border crossing dangerous and largely unmonitored by NGOs

Allegations of human rights violations

EU officials, UN agencies as well as rights organizations have repeatedly criticized Latvia, accusing it of treating migrants inhumanely.

Migrants who manage to enter Latvia from Belarus find themselves detained and reportedly subject to abuse by border agents. Many are arbitrarily detained in tents at undisclosed locations in isolated areas of the forest or placed in detention centers.

An Amnesty report from last October reported cases of authorities confiscating migrants' mobile phones, cutting off communication with loved ones and the rest of the outside world. Latvia's government rejected the accusations.

The small percentage of those allowed into Latvia are usually placed in detention centers where there is limited access to humanitarian assistance. Last December, medical charity Doctors without Borders (MSF) ended its operations in the country, saying they were not granted unrestricted access to people in detention centers.

According to MSF, the Latvian border guard service conducted over 4,000 pushbacks in 2022, forcing people back through the border fence, and leaving them to languish without sufficient food and water.

Some even die. Last December, an Afghan man who entered Latvia by squeezing through a hole in the border fence died of severe hypothermia. He was allegedly smuggled across the border together with another Afghan man.

with Reuters