Latvia: Afghan migrant smuggled from Belarus dies of hypothermia

BY|infomigrants

An Afghan man who entered Latvia via a hole in the border fence with Belarus has died of hypothermia. He is said to have been smuggled across the border along with another Afghan man.

An Afghan migrant who crossed into Latvia from neighboring Belarus has died of severe hypothermia, the Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa) reported on Tuesday (December 20), citing the Latvian Border Guard.

The man, accompanied by another Afghan migrant, died in a clinic in the town of Rezekne. The two Afghans had entered Latvia through a hole in the temporary border fence, the authority in Riga said on Tuesday.

According to a report by The Baltic Times news outlet, irregular migrants had smuggled the two Afghan citizens across the Latvian-Belarus border. It said Latvian border guards noticed two groups of people on the Belarusian side of the border, and that one of the groups was transporting a man on a stretcher. An individual pulled the man on the stretcher across the border through a “hole made in the border fence” and then returned to the Belarus side. Moments later, “one person was pushed into Latvian territory,” The Baltic Times reported.

The Latvian border guards found both men were showing visible signs of hypothermia and were unable to answer any questions, so an ambulance was called to take the men to Rezekne hospital for treatment, where one of them died, The Baltic Times added.

“Such an atrocity on the part of the immigrants and Belarusian authorities is categorically unacceptable,” The Baltic Times reported Latvia’s Border Guard as saying.

Latvia bolsters border security
European Union country Latvia shares an approximate 172 kilometer-long border with Belarus. Riga accuses Belarus and its ruler Alexander Lukashenko of using migrants from crisis regions as a political weapon by allowing them to cross into the EU via Belarus.

In the summer in 2021, thousands of migrants attempted to enter the EU irregularly.

In response, Latvia bolstered border security and in August 2021, declared a state of emergency in the border region and authorized its border guard to turn away migrants.

Humanitarian organization Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has accused Latvian authorities of pushing back migrants in freezing temperatures.