Finnish authorities are reported to have detained 18 people who were found in a forest north of the Imatra station on Finland’s southeastern border with Russia on Thursday (January 25).

The group included children and adults and came from the Middle East, according to reports from the Southeast Finland border guard. All are reported to have applied for asylum in Finland.

It was the middle of the night when the migrants were found, and they were hungry and cold, a member of the local border guard, Jussi Vainikka, told the news service Yle.

Another border guard official based in north Korelia, Commander Matti Pitkäniitty, said the weather conditions were harsh. "It’s cold out there, it’s minus 10 today in this region and we have about half a meter of snow. It makes moving outside the open roads difficult […and] exhausting if you need to move long distances," he told InfoMigrants.

The 18 people found on Thursday bring the number of undocumented migrants crossing Finland’s southeastern border to more than 30 since the start of the year, according to Pitkäniitty.

This is in spite of the fact that all eight crossing stations on Finland’s 1,340 km border with Russia have been closed, a step taken by the government in response to an increase in the number of asylum seekers – mostly from the Middle East – arriving at the border.

Announcing the closure of the last open crossing on November 28, Prime Minister Petteri Orpo said Finland would not accept any attempts to "undermine our national security."

The Finnish government claims that Russia is orchestrating the situation in order to put pressure on Finland and on the EU as a whole. Russia has rejected the accusations.

Once the cold gets to you so your movement ability is decreasing and as time goes by, if you don’t find them, that makes it extremely difficult and dangerous. – Matti Pitkäniitty, Finnish Border Guard

Finnish authorities say that since last August, around 1,300 asylum seekers have arrived at the eastern border, which is closed until February 11. While the numbers are small relative to other countries at the external borders of the European Union such as Spain or Italy, they reflect a significant change for Finland, says Pitkäniitty.

"Normally we have had 30 persons in a year in this border, and now we have had it in less than a month, and in these harsh conditions."

Arrests, but no pushbacks

The news site Yle reports that the last time people were detained for trying to enter was two weeks ago, when 11 Iranian nationals crossed the border between Nuijamaa and Joutseno, south of Imatra. This group also reportedly applied for asylum in Finland.

Undocumented migrants in Finland are arrested because crossing the border is a legal offense, but they are still able to apply for asylum in Finland and, as a rule, are not detained.

Pitkäniitty insists no one is being sent back without being given the opportunity to request international protection, an illegal practice sometimes called a pushback. "We are not pushing back persons to the Russian side," he told InfoMigrants.

The Finnish government continues to emphasize that the border crossings are illegal. It has received support from the European Union’s border agency, Frontex, to try to prevent people from entering the EU via Finland and then traveling to other countries. The migration authorities recently admitted that some people had vanished from reception centers in Finland and had filed new asylum applications in countries including France, Germany and Sweden.

With dpa