Using migrants as a weapon
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EU officials have accused Alexander Lukashenko, Belarus’s autocratic leader, of flying migrants into the country and encouraging them to cross the EU’s borders to destabilise the bloc

NORWAY 
DENMARK
NETH.
Warsaw
POLAND
BELARUS 
LATVIA 
LITHUANIA
Minsk
Grodno
RUSSIA
Moscow
EST. 
GERMANY
Berlin
SWEDEN
Brest 
UKRAINE


400km 250 miles

Jun-Dec 2021: 8,000 migrants cross into Poland, Lithuania and Latvia

Dec: 10,000 migrants remain in Belarus

Kuznica crossing

Jan-Dec: 10,690 illegal entries via Belarus
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Nov 26, 2021: Lukashenko (right) makes televised visit to group of migrants
stranded on Belarus’s border with Poland, telling them “It is your choice. “Go! That’s the whole philosophy”
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May 2021: Morocco encourages 8,000 mostly Moroccan migrants to enter Spanish territory of Ceuta. Move is seen as reprisal after Spain allows Polisario Front leader Brahim Ghali to be treated in hospital for Covid-19. Polisario Front is fighting for Western Saharan sovereignty against Moroccan government
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Aug 2010: Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi causes outrage by demanding €5 billion/year from EU to stop African migrants crossing Mediterranean to Italy
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May 1980: At height of Cold War, Cuba’s Fidel Castro (below) opens Port of
Mariel for any Cubans eager to leave for U.S.
Some 125,000 Cubans cross to Florida, contributing to U.S. President Jimmy Carter’s election defeat
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Mar-Dec 1971: Ten million Bengali refugees flee to India during Bangladesh Liberation War. Pakistani crackdown on independence movement puts pressure on New Delhi to intervene militarily in early December
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Sources: Associated Press, EU Observer, Financial Times Pictures: Getty Images © GRAPHIC NEWS