The Baltic countries are seeking damages, including compensation for border reinforcement costs.
Lithuania has launched legal proceedings against Belarus at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and accused neighbors of coordinating the refugee and migrant crisis by encouraging the smuggling of people across the border.
“The Belarusian regime must be legally accountable to coordinate the waves of illegal migration and the resulting waves of human rights abuses,” Lithuanian Justice Minister Limantas Mox said in a statement Monday.
“We are taking this case to the International Court of Justice and sending a clear message. We cannot use vulnerable people as political pawns under international law without facing consequences.”
The case, submitted to the ICJ in The Hague, centers around UN protocols against the smuggling of migrants through land, sea and air, centering on the UN’s alleged violations by Belarus.
The Lithuanian Foreign Ministry said attempts to resolve the issue through bilateral negotiations have failed, and there is evidence that Belarus is directly involved in organizing refugee and migrant flows, including a surge in flights from the Middle East run by Belarus’s owned airline.
After landing in Belarus, many of the passengers were escorted to the Lithuanian border by Belarusian security forces and forced to cross illegally, Lithuanian officials said.
Lithuania also accused Belarus of refusing to cooperate with border services to prevent irregular crossings, saying it is seeking compensation through the ICJ for alleged damages incurred, including costs associated with border reinforcement.
Tensions between the two countries have been boiling down since 2021 when thousands of people, mainly from the Middle East and Africa, began arriving from Belarus on the Lithuania, Poland and Latvian borders.
Belarus previously had more than 400 Iraqis deported to Baghdad on a charter flight from Minsk in November 2021, deporting Middle Eastern refugees and migrants.
That same year, a Human Rights Watch report accused Belarus of manufacturing the crisis, rated “violence, inhumane, degraded treatment, and coercion by Belarusian border guards is common.”
European Union officials also accused Minsk of being a “weaponized” immigrant in order to destabilize the bloc. The claims have been strongly denied by Belarus.
In December, the EU approved an emergency measure that would allow member states bordering Belarus and Russia to temporarily suspend their rights of asylum if migration is being manipulated for political purposes.
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