Opinions & Interviews

Volfovich: Belarus spearheads efforts to tackle illegal migration

MINSK, 15 November (BelTA) – Belarus spearheads efforts to address the problem of illegal migration, State Secretary of the Security Council of Belarus Aleksandr Volfovich said at the international conference in Minsk to discuss regional cooperation in combating illegal migration, BelTA has learned.

“Illegal migration has become a global issue and has swept through Europe, first of all,” the state secretary of the Security Council emphasized.

Aleksandr Volfovich noted that diplomats from the EU countries that are directly affected by this problem did not attend the conference in Minsk. “They make a fuss about it more than others, but for some reason they do not want to discuss it and find solutions to this problem. In order to come to grips with it, we need to sit down at the negotiating table, embark on a dialogue, map out a joint action plan and deepen cooperation with the neighboring countries of Poland and the Baltic states. We have repeatedly suggested through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other channels that we should discuss this issue and look for solutions. This problem is very complex,” he remarked.

Aleksandr Volfovich emphasized that Belarus is not the source and cause of illegal migration. But it so happened that because of the military conflict in Ukraine and other factors, Belarus has become the main route for illegal migrants on their way to the EU.

“We are not interested in building fences on our border, we are not interested in harassing, humiliating, beating and killing migrants... Over the past year, we have found 50 bodies of migrants dumped in Belarus by the European Union. There are hundreds of injured people. We must jointly seek ways to solve this problem,” Aleksandr Volfovich said.

According to him, over 1,500 illegal migrants are detained annually on the Belarusian border. “Over the past year, we identified and eliminated about 60 channels of illegal migration, detained over 170 ringleaders and coordinators of human smuggling, the prosecutor's office opened over 100 criminal cases. In other words, we are working on these issues,” Aleksandr Volfovich noted.

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