Vilnius, August 7 – Lithuanian border authorities have detained a 58-year-old Azerbaijani national suspected of attempting to smuggle four asylum seekers from the Baltic states into Western Europe.
According to the State Border Guard Service of Lithuania, the incident occurred on the evening of August 5 near the village of Senoji Radviliskes in the Kalvarija municipality, close to the Polish border. Officers from the Varėna border unit stopped a Poland-registered Renault Laguna suspected of transporting illegal migrants.
Behind the wheel was a citizen of Azerbaijan who holds a German residence permit. He was accompanied by four men—two of whom identified themselves as Syrian nationals, aged 23 and 26, and presented asylum documents issued by Latvia’s Foreigners Registration Center. The other two claimed to be from Somalia but had no documents.
Subsequent checks confirmed that the Somali individuals were in fact 16-year-old minors who had illegally left a refugee reception center in Rukla, run by Lithuania’s Reception and Integration Agency.
Under current law, asylum seekers are not permitted to leave the country where they filed their application until a decision is made. As a result, all five individuals—the driver and the four migrants—were taken into custody.
The Azerbaijani citizen is currently being held in a temporary detention facility operated by the Varėna border unit. The vehicle has been impounded and is being stored at the Druskininkai border post.
The Syrians will be handed back to Latvian authorities, while the Somali teenagers will be returned to Lithuania’s migration agency. Authorities are expected to decide shortly on pre-trial measures for the Azerbaijani suspect.
Under Lithuanian law, facilitating illegal border crossings carries a penalty of up to eight years in prison.
According to the border service, the incident fits a common pattern: migrants entering the EU via Belarus often file asylum claims in countries like Lithuania, Latvia, or Poland, then attempt to move westward illegally—treating their initial point of entry merely as a transit zone.
