Migrants on Arctic transit route have returned to Moscow

The last waiting migrant at the mottel in Kandalaksha south on Russia’s Kola Peninsula has now left for the south, reports Severpost with reference to the regional blog site blogg51.ru.

50 of the migrants that for weeks have stayed in the motel left for Moscow on Saturday. The blog-site says “the refugees where strongly recommended to leave.”

The last seven asylum seekers that were allowed to go west crossed the border to Finnish Lapland last Monday.

President Vladimir Putin told the collegium of FSB on February 26^th to “tighten monitoring of the refugee flows coming into Russia or transiting onwards to European countries. Russia’s border guard service is a branch of FSB.

Päivi Kaasinen, Communication Manger with Finland’s Border Guard Headquarters says to the Independent Barents Observer the weekend was quiet at the two northernmost border checkpoints to Russia.

“The number of asylum seekers during the weekend was zero,” Päivi Kassinen says.

Deputy Commander of Lapland Border Guard District, Jussi Sainio, says the last asylum seekers came on February 29^th.

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More than 1,000 migrants crossed into Finland at Raja-Joosepi and Salla the first eight weeks of 2016. Last autumn, 5,500 migrants came via the Kola Peninsula to Norway’s Storskog border checkpoint.