Finland asks EU border protection agency Frontex for help

51 asylum seekers came on bicycles at Salla checkpoint in Lapland on Wednesday, the third day in a row with migrants crossed into Finland in freezing cold.

“The condition for one immigrant was so bad that an ambulance was ordered for him,” Lapland Border Guard service says in a statement shortly after the checkpoint closed for the day.

At Salla, the Border Guard now gets assistance from the police and defense forces to build new barriers and fences to keep safety under control if more migrants arrive. The Barents Observer earlier on Wednesday could tell that about 300 migrants are waiting along the road to the Finnish border in the north.

European Union Commissioner for Home Affairs, Ylva Johansson, said to news agency STT that Finland has asked for 60 officers from Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency set up to support EU member states and Schengen-associated countries in the management of external borders and fight against cross-border crime.

Johansson compared what now happens at Finland’s eastern border with the migrant crisis in 2021 on the Belarus border with Poland and Lithuania. The Finns have full support in the fight against Russia’s hybrid operation, Ylva Johansson assured.

Finland’s four checkpoints with Russia in the south are all closed for traffic and the migrants have been assisted north by FSB Border Guards. There are still no asylum seekers seen at the Raja-Jooseppi in Lapland or at the Storskog checkpoint on Norway’s border with Russia’s Kola Peninsula.

In addition to the 51 migrants at Salla, 24 came across the border at Vartius the Kainuu Border Guard informs. 

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