Second underground migrant tunnel discovered on Belarus border
Latvian border guards in Krāslava detained 28 people on Thursday who illegally crossed the border from Belarus through a dug underground tunnel. An LSM journalist documented what the tunnel looks like.
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On Thursday, Latvia's State Border Guard uncovered another attempt to illegally enter the country through an underground passage near Krāslava. In total, 28 people were found to have crossed the border from the Belarusian side using a specially dug tunnel.
The incident was recorded near Krāslava, a town in Latgale located close to the border with Belarus — a region where illegal border-crossing attempts have repeatedly been registered in recent years.
Second known tunnel of its kind
A journalist from LSM's Latgale editorial office traveled to the scene and published photographs showing what the discovered tunnel looks like. According to the report, this is already the second known case of such an underground tunnel being found at the Latvia-Belarus border and used for illegal crossing.
The source text does not provide further details on the tunnel's length, depth or exact location. However, the fact that migrants used a complex engineering solution — a dug tunnel — points to an organized approach to illegal border crossing.
Border guards continue to monitor the border area, where attempts at illegal migration from the Belarusian side have been registered regularly for several years.


