Latvia considers that Belarus must assume responsibility for people at its border with Latvia, and calls on the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to become involved in the resolution of the problem.
In the context of the visit to Latvia by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the Ministers of the Interior and of Foreign Affairs of Latvia urge the High Commissioner Filippo Grandi to achieve that Belarus assumed responsibility for people who currently are left on the Belarusian border without shelter and food.
Since June 2021, Belarus has been conducting a hybrid operation at the external border of the European Union by pushing people brought from Iraq on tourist visas into the territories of Lithuania, Latvia and Poland illegally and in an organised manner. Latvia has declared a state of emergency in its border area and since then it is not possible to cross the state border illegally in those areas; however, Belarusian authorities continue to bring those people to the border with Latvia and actively force them across the border while preventing them from returning to their countries of residence.
On humanitarian grounds, Latvia has allowed 14 people, due to their poor health and a threat to their lives, to cross the border and receive medical help. Latvia’s non-governmental organisations have rendered humanitarian assistance to those people.
Nonetheless, those are short-term solutions, because Belarus must assume responsibility for people whose arrival to its territory it has organised itself. It is unacceptable that people who have arrived in Belarus are being unlawfully directed to the border with Latvia, to be later prevented from return to their countries of residence. The Ministers recall that Belarus is a state party to the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and is bound by the obligations laid down therein and the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
If Belarus is unable to ensure the return of those people to their countries of residence, it should be made certain that those people are provided with shelter and food.
Latvia cannot assume responsibility for people who, due to the actions undertaken by Belarusian authorities, have found themselves at the border in the territory of Belarus.