In Europe more than 100 people faced criminal charges last year for facilitating irregular migration, according to the Brussels-based NGO, PICUM. The organization warned of a growing trend targeting humanitarian workers.
Countries across the EU have ramped up border security in 2023 to stem the flow of irregular migration: Germany, Austria, Italy, Denmark, Poland, Hungary and Latvia -- to name but a few. Meanwhile, a severe shortage of housing across the bloc has left scores of asylum seekers homeless, sleeping in tents or boats, while offshore detention centers are increasingly becoming more palatable for EU leaders.
Latvia's construction of a border fence with Belarus is slated for completion by the end of 2023. But border security personnel say a fence is not enough to manage migration.
Ever more migrants are trying to get into the EU via the Baltic route. The presidents of Belarus and Russia, Alexander Lukashenko and Vladimir Putin, are suspected of using them as pawns. DW joins Latvian border guards on patrol.
In a bid to curb irregular migrant arrivals, Latvia's government has decided to close one of its two border crossing points with Belarus. The Latvian prime minister accused Belarussian ruler Lukashenko of again using irregular migration as a "hybrid threat".
Latvia has become the latest EU member state to step up the protection of its border with Belarus. The government in Riga accuses its neighbor of deliberately organizing irregular migrant crossings to weaken the eastern flank of the EU.
Poland's Defense Ministry says it will send reinforcements to the country's frontier with Belarus. Warsaw claims Belarusian border guards are behind a renewed rise in illegal crossings.
More migrants have been intercepted along the Latvian border in the past year, where they find themselves detained and subject to abuse by border agents.
The body of an Ethiopian woman was found in the forest in the Polish-Belarusian border area at the weekend. Poland's Human Rights Commissioner is examining a complaint over her death, the fifth in the border region in less than two months.
Latvia and Lithuania have agreed to boost bilateral cooperation at the border with Russia and Belarus to stop steady numbers of irregular migrants crossing their borders. The two Baltic states consider the migrant flow as a hybrid war tool used by Moscow, in cooperation with Minsk.
The Czech Republic has announced that it will end conducting border controls with neighboring Slovakia, which had been introduced in a bid to control irregular migration patterns. But elsewhere in the bloc, border controls remain on high alert.
After escaping the Taliban in August 2021, a group of Afghans spent over one year in Kosovo and three other countries, living with great uncertainty before the small Baltic country of Latvia accepted them. InfoMigrants spoke to one of the Afghan refugees who made it to the Latvian capital Riga.