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Tensions are rising in the Medininkai migrant camp in Lithuania. A group of asylum seekers, mainly African women, tried to break through a gate in the camp on October 26 to protest against the detention conditions. The guards, assisted by police, responded with tear gas. The FRANCE 24 Observers team spoke to a Congolese woman at the camp who says she and others believe the guards offer preferential treatment to Iraqi women detained in the same camp.
The protest began early on October 26 when a group of African women gathered in front of a gate chanting “Liberté” (freedom). The women mobilised after an altercation took place between an African migrant and an Iraqi migrant in the camp, according to witnesses we contacted via WhatsApp.
Gathered in front of a camp gate, migrant women chant “Freedom!”, October 26, 2021.
Tensions escalated later in the evening, when police officers sprayed tear gas at migrants who were trying to break through a gate. Video and audio testimonies shared on WhatsApp explain the migrants’ anger: they had received expired basic necessities and, most of all, were discriminated against by camp guards.
Video of a Lithuanian policeman spraying tear gas at the Medininkai camp, October 26, 2021.
‘One of the girls wasn’t allowed to see her father who had come to visit her’
Clotilde (not her real name), a migrant from the Democratic Republic of the Congo has been in the camp at Medininkai for…
Source : france24
