111 detained on the border this year

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Illegal border crossings are on the rise, with 111 people detained–most of them Vietnamese–on the border this year. The same statistic for the whole of 2015 was about 70, Border Guard chief Normunds Garbars told Latvian Television Thursday.

According to Garbars, there are organized groups smuggling people across the border into Latvia–presumably from Russia and Belarus–and a joint international investigation will take place over three cases of smuggling people from Russia to Poland. 

A fence has been set up on parts of the border, set up on 14 km of the border already with plans to add a further 44 km this year.

Garbars said that the Border Guard are undermanned, with employees being sent to patrol the eastern border from as far away as Liepāja and Ventspils.

The Border Guard have asked to increase funding by €60m within the next three years, which should allow the Border Guard to hire an additional 263 employees and buy new equipment.

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