Finland Arrests 11 Iranians for Crossing the Southeastern Border Irregularly

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• The Southeastern Finland Border Guard has arrested 11 people for crossing the border irregularly.
• The arrested individuals were nationals of Iran, and upon their arrest, they applied for asylum.
• Finnish Border Guard suspects that the arrested people were assisted to the border by the Russian authorities.

Finland’s Border Guard (RAJA) has arrested 11 nationals of Iran for crossing the southeastern border irregularly.

As RAJA revealed, all the persons who have been arrested crossed the land border, and upon their arrest, they applied for asylum.

The border guard of Southeast Finland arrested 11 people on suspicion of state border crime in Lappeenranta in the area between Nuijamaa and Joutseno on January 11, 2024.

RAJA

According to RAJA, it is suspected that the Iranian nationals who have been arrested have been involved in cross-border crime.

The authorities said that the group was assisted by Russian authorities to reach the territory of Finland, thus suggesting that Russia is continuing to instrumentalise migrants for the purpose of destabilising the bloc.

The preliminary investigation has revealed that the group was assisted in an unauthorised border crossing on the Russian side.

RAJA

Finland’s border with Russia is currently closed, meaning that there have been no regular border crossings so far this year.

As for the previous 12 months, RAJA revealed that around 1,231,000 border crossings were registered at the border crossing points of Southeast Finland in 2023.

Of all border crossing points of Southeast Finland, in 2023, the Vaalimaa border crossing point recorded the highest number of crossings – 804,000.

The Vaalimaa border crossing point is followed by Nujiamaa with 307,000 border crossings and Imatra with 119,000 border crossings.

In addition, in 2023, Finland’s Border Guard prevented a total of 1,769 people from crossing the southeastern border. The majority of those who were denied entry into Finland last year were citizens of Russia, against which travel restrictions were applied.

Last year, the Southeastern Finland Border Guard also detected a high number of fake documents – 68 fake travel documents, 28 fake vehicle documents, and 17 other fake documents.

The country started this year, too, with strict rules and controls. Due to instrumentalised migration concerns, Finland has decided to keep its entire land border with Russia shut until February 11.

During the time that the Finland-Russia border is closed, people are not able to cross it. Moreover, as long as measures are in place, international protection applications are not accepted at the Finnish border with Russia.

Instead, those who wish to apply for international protection must submit their application at one of the border crossing points that are open.

With the aim of avoiding any threats, Finland said that it would assess its border measures regularly and decide to keep or drop them based on the situation.