As many as 272 migrants who entered Lithuania without appropriate documents have agreed to return home after voluntarily receiving assistance of 1,000 euros. They will be able to take commercial flights out of Lithuania next week, reports BNS.
The vast majority of returnees are Iraqi citizens. Several people will also fly to Russia and India.
The assistance of 1,000 euros is paid to migrants at the airport just before their departure.
Lithuania increased the amount of payment for those migrants who decided to return home to 1,000 euros last December. It could be used until January 20, 2022. Now, the compensation has been reduced again to 300 euros. After this reduction, the number of those wishing to return has also decreased.
According to the deputy chief of the State Border Service of Lithuania, Rimantas Petrauskas, COVID-19 also interferes with the expulsion of migrants. Ten percent of those leaving test positive for coronavirus, so the departure has to be delayed.
In 2021, more than 4.2 thousand migrants from the Middle East and Africa illegally entered Lithuania from the territory of Belarus. More than a thousand of them left Lithuania on their own or were deported. Nearly 3.1 thousand people remain in five migrant accommodation centers in Lithuania.
belsat.eu
