In Lithuania, African students blackmailed by Belarus

By his own admission, a few months ago, Koffy * would not have known how to put Belarus on a map. “Russia yes, but not Belarus”. The 27-year-old is from a West African country whose name he did not want InfoMigrants to publish, fearing for his safety. Engaged in the opposition to the current regime, he decided to flee his country where he claims to have been threatened.

After several months spent as a student in Belarus, the young man left the country for Lithuania on July 7.

His departure plan was born at the end of June, when Koffy notes that several students have left the student hostel in Minsk where he lives. “Someone told me that people were leaving because the border [avec la Lituanie] was open, “he recalls.

>> To (re) read: Lithuania says it is overwhelmed by influx of migrants from Belarus

The young man also decides to try his luck. He left Minsk for Grodno, about fifty kilometers from the Lithuanian border. From there he takes a taxi to the last village before the border and walks into Lithuania. “After walking for about two hours, I was arrested by Lithuanian policemen and have been locked up ever since.”

Unworthy living conditions

It has now been over a month since Koffy has lived in a former school in the tiny village of Verebiejai, lost in the Lithuanian countryside, about 130 kilometers from Vilnius.

Men, women and children live in this decrepit building which has been surrounded by a gate. Until a few days ago, journalists were allowed to speak to migrants through the fence. But since the barrier was partly covered with white tarpaulins, they no longer have the right to address the exiles.

Inside, the living conditions are appalling, according to the migrants. Especially in bathrooms where the floor is covered with excrement due to blocked toilets. The place is so dirty that thick wooden pallets had to be placed on the ground to move around without getting too dirty.

Koffy also complains about poor management of the food distribution. “Sometimes there are people who come and help themselves several times and then there is nothing left for others,” denounces the young man who has already spent several days with only one meal in his stomach.

“As long as it’s a country I’m safe in”

For the young man, confinement in Lithuania is a new disillusionment in an adventure that began months earlier, in March 2021, thousands of kilometers from Belarus. At that time, this Eastern European country, supported by Russia and often described as “the last dictatorship in Europe”, has experienced for eight months an unprecedented protest movement that emerged following the fraudulent re-election. by President Alexander Lukashenko, August 9, 2020.

“I wanted to leave my country as soon as possible. When the travel agent I was in contact with told me that he could quickly get me an invitation from a university in Belarus, I told him that I ‘agreed, because my life depended on it.

To enter Belarus, African students turn to travel agencies – more or less formal – which take care of the formalities. An “invitation” from a Belarusian university is a prerequisite for going to Minsk. Intermediary agents, generally based in Belarus, are responsible for providing these “invitations”. Student visas are then issued to foreign travelers upon arrival at Minsk airport.

In the case of Koffy, the “travel agent” is in fact an acquaintance of him who established contact with a Lebanese intermediary responsible for making the invitation request to the Belarusian university. Koffy quickly obtained a letter from the Belarusian National Technical University, and arrived in Minsk on March 10, via Istanbul. “When I arrived, I paid for the student visa 3,500 dollars (around 2,975 euros) and started taking Russian lessons,” he recalls.

Quickly, the disappointments follow one another. Koffy learns that his visa, supposed to cover the academic year, will ultimately only be valid for six months. The young man also realizes that foreign students are not allowed to work in the country. Finally, he is not allowed to stay where he wants. “The hostel where I was to live with other students was really run down and dirty but when I wanted to rent a studio the Lebanese told me that I couldn’t leave and that I had to stay at the hostel” , says the young man.

Koffy is still disillusioned when he realizes that as a bisexual he is not safe in Belarus. Discrimination and violence against members of the LGBT community are frequent in the country.

Lithuanian Mirage

When he takes the road to Lithuania, he is convinced that he will find a better situation there. But the young man does not know that, since the start of the increase in migrant arrivals in the country, the Lithuanian authorities have adopted a new law allowing them to keep the exiles locked up.

In the accommodation centers, people are registered but there is, for the moment, no question of international protection. “I thought I could apply for asylum in Lithuania but now, I don’t know what to do,” Koffy worries.

Tshetshe also believed in the Lithuanian mirage. Like Koffy, this young telecommunications engineer, originally from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), was a student in Belarus when Minsk opened its border with Lithuania.

The decision to leave was not easy for Tshetshe. He only had one year of study left to complete his Masters at the University of Minsk. “At that time, I lacked the financial means. The dean of the university told me that if I paid my tuition late, my study contract would be canceled and I would be expelled,” said the Congolese.

But, as a former official of the regime of ex-President Joseph Kabila, a return to the DRC would put him, according to him, in serious danger. Tshetshe prefers to try his luck in Lithuania, also convinced that this Baltic country, a member of the Schengen area, will open the door to Western Europe. But after crossing the border, Tshetshe is arrested and finds himself locked in the same center as Koffy.

The engineer finds it hard to realize that he was the victim of the diplomatic conflict between the Belarusian president and the European Union. Last May, Brussels imposed economic sanctions on Minsk after the regime hijacked a plane to arrest an opposition journalist and his companion. “We were stopping migrants and drugs. Catch them yourself now,” Lukashenko replied in Brussels before opening its border with Lithuania.

Tshetshe remains perplexed: “They say that we are weapons that Lukashenko used to weaken his neighbor, yet we, the students, we contribute a lot to the Belarusian economy.”

Border guards leading the way

Foreign students are indeed an indispensable source of income for universities in the country where most domestic students study for free, explains Alena Kudzko, director of the policy think tank Globsec, based in Slovenia.

“Usually, [parmi les étudiants étrangers se trouvent] people from Central Asian countries, such as Turkmenistan or even Arab countries but African countries are also concerned “, she underlines. In a 2016 article, the online media Belarus Digest claimed, based on official Belarusian statistics, that Nigerians were the most represented African students in the country.

Alena Kudzko does not exclude that the news of the opening of the borders could have created a breath of air in Belarus, but she points out that “previously, students came to Belarus to study. They did not want to leave the country. and enter the European Union. “

In recent weeks, Belarusian border guards seem to no longer oppose the crossing of the border. In the centers in Lithuania and on social networks, testimonies and videos of Belarusian soldiers indicating the route to follow to groups of migrants are multiplying.

On August 3, Lithuania said it had started turning back migrants arriving from Belarus. In response, Minsk has closed its border to people who wish to return to Belarus, creating a desperate situation for those trapped in the few meters of no man’s land between the two borders. For his part, Iraq announced on Saturday the temporary suspension of flights to Minsk.

>> To (re) read: Lithuania builds border wall with Belarus

Departures from Africa continued in recent days, despite pushbacks at the Lithuanian border. On Facebook, some informal travel agencies that offer student and tourist visas for Belarus have even changed their listings to keep up with current events. On July 25, a Nigerian agency said in a post about visas for Belarus: “We can help you get to Lithuania.”

* All first names have been changed