RIGA, Sept 23 (LETA) - Over the weekend, border guards prevented attempts by 109 people to illegally enter Latvia from Belarus, LETA was told at the State Border Guard.

So far this year, border guards have prevented attempts by 4,452 people to illegally enter Latvia from Belarus. Sixteen persons have been let into the country on humanitarian grounds this year.

While in the fall of 2023, around 100 attempts to enter Latvia were prevented per day on the average, this number had decreased in the winter months. The first attempts to illegally enter Latvia this year were reported on January 10.

With the renewed flow of illegal migrants, a reinforced border security regime at the Latvian-Belarusian border has been reintroduced until December 31, 2024.

Last year, 13,863 people were stopped from crossing the border illegally and 428 were admitted on humanitarian grounds. In 2022, 5,286 attempts to illegally cross the Latvian-Belarusian border were prevented, while 217 people were allowed to cross the border for humanitarian reasons.

Latvian authorities consider attempts by Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko's regime to push migrants across Latvian, Lithuanian and Polish borders to be methods of hybrid warfare targeting these countries.