Pedestrian traffic through Belarus’ border with EU countries banned

The ban is to enter into force since October 1.

Charter97.org website has been informed about that by the State Border Committee of Belarus.

“Since October 1, 2014 the pedestrian traffic at the auto border entry point with Latvia, Lithuania and Poland is temporarily banned,” the report reads. “The bordering states have already been informed about the new order.”

This decision has been caused by absence of necessary infrastructure for pedestrian traffic at the Belarusian entry points (separate pedestrian corridors, separate terminals of customs and border registration). At the moment it does not provide the necessary level of security of pedestrians and constantly creates difficult traffic conditions at the entry points, which had been designed exclusively as road-transport ones previously.”

As said by the State Border Committee, these circumstances many times were reasons for justified appeals and complaints of citizens, including foreign ones, as well as critical articles in the media.

“Besides, lack of equipment at the checkpoints while the popularity of this kind of crossing the border had regularly provoked forming of queues even from pedestrians,” the agency notes. “Considering the existing problems of citizens’ security, who cross the border as pedestrians, and the objective impossibility to provide services to the great number of pedestrians rapidly, the Belarusian side has to temporarily stop the experiment which started last year, before the State Customs Committee of Belarus finishes the measures for improvement of the infrastructure of the border crossing checkpoints considering the interests of pedestrian traffic.”