Estonia steps up cooperation with neighbours amid illegal migrant influx

Over the past ten days, Estonian police have detained 81 illegal migrants, adding to the workload of law enforcement, the migration centre and interpreters. At the moment, 111 people are being held at the detention centre, where their identities, documents and circumstances of arrival are being checked.

Some of the migrants say they are minors, which brings the Tallinn Migration Centre into the process. Its head, Kaisa Juprus-Tali, said the centre has taken part in about 30 procedural actions. In some cases, an initial check shows that a person is not actually a minor, and the police then change the course of the case. Juprus-Tali explained that minors are subject to different, more lenient rules.

The language barrier adds another layer of difficulty. Estonia has no interpreters for Tigrinya, a language spoken in Eritrea, so specialists have to be found in other European countries. This leads to double translation: first from Tigrinya into English, and then from English into Estonian, because the official record has to be written in Estonian.

Meanwhile, Estonia is expanding international cooperation. On Monday, 12 officers from the Police and Border Guard Board will travel to Latvia to help protect the Latvian-Belarusian border. In the near future, Estonia is also expected to receive additional help from Finnish colleagues.

Interior Minister Igor Taro said the extra officers will act as “additional eyes and hands” to keep exits from Estonia under control and prevent migrants from using the country as a transit route. “We will catch everyone and return everyone,” he said. Indrek Aru, head of the Põhja Prefecture bureau, noted that the authorities are trying to complete all procedures as quickly as possible because they require significant state resources, including costs for accommodation, interpreters and legal actions. The authorities are preparing for increased migration pressure to continue for the next two months.