UNHCR, Lithuanian Red Cross and the State Border Guard Service in Lithuania have taken an important step towards ensuring protection-sensitive border monitoring in Lithuania. The three parties reached an agreement in early June 2010. The Memorandum of Understanding was signed in Vilnius, Lithuania, by representatives of all parties.
The new agreement will make it easier to keep track of asylum-seekers arriving at the border and gain knowledge about the accommodation and possible return of the applicants. Assigned monitors will be able to contact the asylum-seekers at border crossings, advice the authorities and discuss application and implementation of international and EU standards, as well as national legislation. The Lithuanian border guards are responsible for one-tenth of the entire external and Schengen borders of the EU.
- This Memorandum is cementing good co-operation with the border authorities in Lithuania. Involvement of civil society representatives is an important step to ensure feasibility in border procedures and to protect the ones in need of international protection , said UNHCR Regional Representative for the Baltic and Nordic Countries, Hans ten Feld.
The Lithuanian Red Cross, UNHCR s long-standing NGO partner, will implement the monitoring activities.
- In this way, we will contribute to the protection of refugees and assist the Government in its tasks, says Grazina Jevgrafoviene, Secretary General.
In its aims to ensure that international standards are fully respected UNHCR has provided training to border guards in Lithuania already before the agreement was officially on paper.
Similar agreements have been signed by UNHCR in countries neighbouring Lithuania, such as Poland and Belarus. Lithuania is the first Baltic State to sign. Some 211 persons applied for asylum in Lithuania in 2009, mainly from Georgia and Russia.
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