Finland does not grant asylum to migrants who entered through Russia

The Migration Service of Finland has not yet granted asylum to any of the migrants who entered the country from the territory of Russia in recent months. This is reported by the Yle.fi portal with reference to the data of the authorities. About two-thirds of those submitted that have already been considered were rejected, the rest were canceled due to the expiration of the validity period.

The migration service managed to consider about 70 asylum seekers, its representative Antti Lehtinen said. In total, about 1,300 asylum seekers entered Finland through Russia in the second half of last year. The whereabouts of approximately 190 of them are unknown, they are listed as missing. It is assumed that they used Finland as a transit state and left it.

• The increase in the number of migrants entering Finland through the Russian border was recorded by border services last fall. Among them are citizens of Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Somalia and other countries, whom the Russian border guards let through at their checkpoints without presenting documents authorizing them to cross the border. Helsinki accused Moscow of provoking citizens of third countries to cross the border.
• In November, due to the influx of migrants, the Finnish authorities decided to completely close all border crossings on the border with Russia until the situation with asylum seekers changes.