Lithuania says Belarus officers illegally pushed migrants over border

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Lithuania has accused 12 Belarusian officers in riot gear of illegally entering its territory to push a group of migrants over the border. Its border service said the Belarusians were repeatedly told they had violated the border during the tense incident on Tuesday. Belarus accused Lithuanian guards of being violent towards the migrants. EU interior ministers condemned Belarus for trying to “instrumentalise human beings for political purposes”. More than 4,100 mostly Iraqi migrants have entered EU member Lithuania illegally from neighbouring Belarus so far this year. The rise in illegal crossings started in June after the EU imposed sanctions on Belarus’s long-time authoritarian leader, Alexander Lukashenko.(BBC)…[+]