Kicking and screaming: Migrant rescuers were shocked after the encounter with the authorities - they saw what was really happening in the border forests

"Last week, in the Varėna district, near the border with Belarus, border guards and "Border" volunteers who help migrants clashed. The latter say that the officer attacked one of them and kicked him several times in the legs because he thought he was "illegal", but when he realized his mistake , apologized profusely for such a hot reaction. However, the representative of the State Border Guard Service (VSAT) denies such stories and claims that there was no violence, it's just that people with unclear goals are blackmailing Lithuania once again.

 

This incident was first described on Facebook by the volunteers themselves, and a discussion between politicians and human rights defenders arose under the post.

 

VSAT representative Giedrius Mišutis, when asked what happened on the territory of the Kabelių checkpoint during the night from Thursday to Friday, said that everything started near the border with Belarus, in the woods, when the border guards noticed a suspicious Mercedes-Benz car.

 

It is this section that has been popular among migrants illegally crossing the border since last summer - there are many forests and swamps here, so the conditions for entering Lithuania undetected are quite favorable. Even a physical barrier does not solve the problem, because this is the Čepkelių raistas, where it was not possible to build a fence.

 

"The border section, an absolutely isolated area, a rut, a car there, especially at this time, before midnight, immediately draws attention," says G. Mišutis. - When the car is being checked, a man is standing next to it. A uniformed, armed border guard introduces himself to the man and asks for identification documents. The man is unresponsive. Documents are requested again. He remains unresponsive.”

 

Then, as the representative of VSAT tells, the border guard grabs the man's backpack while trying to check whether he has any illegal items and immediately hears the screams of women, which he did not even notice before.

 

"They begin to explain that the border guard is doing something and exceeding something," G. Mišutis teaches. - An officer, in the course of his duties, communicating with a person who does not obey his demands, tries to check his backpack. That is all. There was nothing else. Three more women, citizens of Lithuania, who have documents, then come out of the forest. That disobedient person turns out to be a citizen of a foreign country.”

 

Accused of kicking

 

However, "Border" volunteer Emilija Švobaitė, who was there, considers the events of the evening as a much more serious incident. Volunteers, having received signals that there may be people in need of help in the forests near the village of Musteikos, went there.

 

After stopping in the forest, they, 3 women and a guy, were loading things from the car when they saw 5 border guards armed with automatic weapons running towards them. 

 

After running up to the guy, one of the officers allegedly kicked him several times in the legs.

 

"They didn't get to us girls, we were a little deeper. He immediately grabbed our volunteer, a foreigner. One of those border guards started kicking him in the legs. Later he said that he did so because we disobeyed his instructions and thought, as he himself said, that it was illegal person. When they leaned against the car and started kicking our volunteer, we say in Lithuanian, what are you doing. We were in a state of shock, our man was being beaten before our eyes. The border guards immediately got a little lost, even froze, apologized. They started saying: you don't know what is happening in these forests, how many illegals there are, we thought that there were illegals here too.

 

But most importantly, they immediately started communicating with us as if they were people, as if the Lithuanian language were a spell. This made us realize that every time we see people in the forest, they are attacked like this. Our volunteer later said that he didn't feel like they wanted to beat him, it felt like they wanted to knock him to the ground. But to use physical violence like that... there was no prelude to that act. I didn't hear a demand, maybe they were trying to say "lay down" in English, but the five of them rushed at us very aggressively and it was extremely difficult to understand what they were saying", - this is how Emilia describes this encounter.

 

The "Border" volunteer claimed that the border guard apologized numerous times for his behavior afterwards, asked if the guy was okay, if he was not in pain, if he was not angry because of such rude behavior.

 

"Communication changed dramatically when he realized that he encountered us Lithuanians, that we are not illegal," said Emilija and hinted that a little later he had the opportunity to listen to the philosophy of this border guard. - He told us that he defends the external border of the European Union and when the border is violated, human rights end. They also mentioned that in 2050 the white race will be pushed out in Europe, because you don't give birth to children, and they come here. Such banal racist beliefs."

 

"But the man carries out a very noble mission and protects the white race from being pushed out," adds the interlocutor ironically.

 

According to Emilia, although she has heard testimonies about such behavior of officers before, she herself saw it for the first time.

 

"Of the people we keep in touch with, who were in the forests and who were allowed into Lithuania, some foreigners said that they still dream nightmares about the forest. And now we have seen for ourselves when they aggressively run towards you, kick you, lay you on the ground. And I don't know if they would have stopped if we hadn't stopped them," says the volunteer.

 

He did not spare criticism

 

The VSAT representative G. Mišutis emphasized that this year, more than 150 investigations into the illegal transportation of people across the state border were initiated and more than 215 traffickers were arrested.

 

He says that transporters are usually detained when suspicious cars are spotted near the border with Belarus at night.

 

"This is the background," observes the VSAT representative and returns to the collision in the Varėna district. - They were asked what you are doing in the border section, right next to the border with Belarus. The answer is that they have come to provide help, have food, tea, and so on. It is suggested that if you have information that an illegal border crossing has taken place somewhere, provide that information, go together, and provide assistance to those persons. Those 4 persons refuse to do it."

 

A few hours later, in the morning, the border guards again met the same people, as G. Mišutis calls them, that is, pseudo-volunteers.

 

"The documents are checked, everything is clarified, there are no complaints," the interviewer says and adds. - They have their own goals, which intentionally or unintentionally coincide with the goals of the Belarusian regime. That is, so that as many illegal migrants as possible enter Lithuania, so that Lithuania is flooded with illegal migrants. For migrants to go and damage the physical barrier, such situations are everyday."

 

According to the VSAT representative, humanitarian aid is always provided to migrants, they are given food, medicine, warm clothes, they are allowed to warm up, and if necessary, an ambulance is called and they are admitted to hospitals.

 

"But there are still people who see Lithuania and its policies as hostile, that somehow Lithuania is not behaving like that in defending itself against the influx. And why, when the border guards offer to provide help, if they know that there are migrants somewhere, do they refuse to do so? They probably imagine that they are carrying out some kind of mystical noble mission, which is completely unnecessary there, because in any case the condition of each detained migrant is really assessed. There are many cases where an ambulance is called. But there is simply self-importance," says G. Mišutis.

 

The representative of the border guards claims that he does not remember a single case of starving or dying migrants who had to be pulled from the clutches of death in the hospital, as the volunteers claim.

 

"It's just being dramatized, artificially thickening information, lying about the activities of the border guards, without saying what you do at night at the border during a state of emergency and why you, if you came to save someone, don't share information if someone is already in trouble. What is the purpose of such actions? It's difficult to say," he states.

 

Saw a lot of lies

 

E. Švobaitė says that in her practice she has repeatedly come across cases where migrants are completely exhausted, starving, forced to drink swamp water. She also mentioned a recent case when a person who came from Sri Lanka had to have his legs amputated.

 

"We provide humanitarian aid. We know of too many cases where humanitarian aid has not been provided, where people are simply turned away. The last case, when an obligation of the European Court of Human Rights was obtained to let people in, they pushed the mother and children back and forth for maybe 20 days until then.

 

This means that we, as Lithuanians, are the same as Belarusians, playing tennis with people on the border. The "Border" group tries to intervene in this and prevent people from being pushed when they need help," she says when asked about the activity.

 

According to her, if migrants are called for medical help, it is done only in extreme cases, and as soon as they get on their feet, foreigners are driven back into the forests. She told about the case of a Pakistani, when he could not be found in Lithuanian hospitals, although he was really there.

 

"They finally found him at Gardinas Hospital. That is, he was pushed out in such a condition that he soon found himself back in the hospital. We suspect that young children are also treated in this way, they are in the cold, soaked, stuck in the swamps. It would be fair to require that when children are detained at checkpoints, the Red Cross is always notified and non-governmental organizations assess the situation. What is happening to the children is simply inhumane and the assessment of that vulnerability cannot be left to the frontiersmen who keep the white race from disappearing."

 

If these were normal expulsions, which the border guards declare, we would have enough documentation and it would not be a gray area that the public unfortunately only hears about from us. "No one else is working at the border, and the information declared by the border guards has proven to be incorrect many times," she said."

 

The border guard who was kicking and screaming has to be put in prison for rest of his life. His attack was racially motivated, so he is a constant danger to our society.  Why do we have a mystical state of emergency? Are we, a NATO country, attacked by Marsians, and we do not know it, only Šimonytė knows? Do we have too much money, so we are inventing "a state of emergency" just for Bilotaitė's fun?  Or is Bilotaitė going to use state of emergency to steal a luxurious plot of land by the Baltic sea in Palanga?