Finland’s President Sauli Niinisto addresses the 78th United Nations General Assembly at the UN headquarters in New York, USA, on September 20, 2023. Portal/Caitlin Ochs/File Photo acquire license rights
HELSINKI, Nov 20 (Portal) – Finland’s President Sauli Niinisto said on Monday it had become impossible to send back asylum seekers who did not meet protection criteria and that this must be taken into account when setting guidelines.
Over 500 asylum seekers, mostly from Yemen, Somalia, Syria and Iraq, arrived in Finland via Russia in the last two weeks, prompting Helsinki to close half of its border crossings and accusing Moscow of smuggling migrants to its border.
“The deportation of migrants who do not meet the asylum criteria has become impossible. “So entering through the border means you can stay in this country if you want,” Niinisto said during a state visit to Poland.
Niinisto called for an EU-wide solution to prevent uncontrolled entry into the passport-free area.
“It is impossible for each country to try alone to deal with the situation that could erupt in a neighboring country immediately afterwards,” Niinisto said.
Tomi Kivenjuuri, head of the Finnish Border Guard’s legal department, said that not all arrivals originally wanted to come to Finland but were forced to apply for asylum after Russian authorities closed the border gates behind them.
“In this situation they had no other choice,” Kivenjuuri told Portal.
Asylum can only be claimed at two of the remaining four border crossings on Finland’s 1,340 km (830 mile) border with Russia.
The Kremlin denied sending migrants and announced on Monday that it had lodged a formal protest against the partial closure of the border. Finland’s decision to close border crossings reflects Helsinki’s anti-Russian stance.
Further north, at the Storskog border crossing between Norway and Russia, the situation is “normal,” a police spokesman said on Monday.
In 2021, Poland, Lithuania and Latvia accused Moscow’s close ally Belarus of artificially creating a refugee crisis at their borders by flying in people from the Middle East and Africa and trying to force them across the border – an accusation Belarus has repeated denied.
Reporting by Essi Lehto in Helsinki; additional reporting by Terje Solsvik and Gwladys Fouche in Oslodd; Edited by Louise Rasmussend, Bernadette Baum and Jonathan Oatis
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