Clashes broke out on Friday as migrants sought to enter Finland from Russia. Helsinki accuses Moscow of seeking to destabilize the country and closes part of its border for 3 months.
Around sixty asylum seekers presented themselves at the four border crossing points in southeastern Finland with Russia on Friday, a few hours before they closed, a border guard official told AFP.
Finland will close these four posts, or half of its border crossing points with Russia, at midnight, accusing Moscow of trying to destabilize the country by letting undocumented migrants cross the border.
“An increasing number of undocumented migrants have been showing up in southeastern Finland in recent weeks, most of them coming by bike. Today we had another 60,” Jussi Vainkka, a local resident, told AFP. responsible for border guards at the Nuijamaa border post.
Before, Russia “did not let these migrants come to Finland without the necessary papers,” he added. “That’s the main change we’ve seen.”
Finland, which shares a 1,340 km border with Russia and joined NATO in April, has seen an influx of visa-free migrants from the Middle East and Africa, particularly Iraq, since the end of August. Somalia and Yemen.
“We are prepared for many scenarios. Let’s see what happens and we will react if necessary,” said the border guard official.
The remarks echo those of Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo, who said Thursday that Finland had “prepared for different kinds of actions, malicious acts on the part of Russia, so the situation is not is no surprise.”
At the same Nuijamaa border post, Yasser Alu, an asylum seeker, told AFP that he was from Syria and that he arrived from Russia by bike.
“I arrived in Moscow then I went to Saint Petersburg and then I arrived at this border post,” he said, claiming to have been “helped by someone” to reach Finland. “We don’t pay” for this trip, he says.
“We met an official here in Finland who asked us where we came from, our names and our passports,” adds the asylum seeker. “Then we’ll grab our stuff and wait for the next steps,” he said.
The four border crossings are planned to be closed until February 18, 2024, with four other crossings remaining open in northern Finland.
Relations between the two neighbors have deteriorated considerably since February 2022 and the Russian offensive in Ukraine, an attack which led Finland, worried about its own security, to join NATO.