Illegal border crossings on the rise

TALLINN- The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) has reported attemptsof residents of third countries to illegally cross the Russian border with Estoniaand Latvia increasing recently.

Citizens of Iran, China, Vietnam and Syria among such border crossers, havebeen detained saod the FSB Pskov border service to Interfax.

About 12 citizens of Vietnam not carrying official documents were recentlyfound in the village of Novo-Izborsk. Their aim was to move on from Russiawhere they would have been used as cheap labor.

A representative of the Russian border guard said that this tendency was dueto the accession of Estonia and Latvia to the Schengen treaty, which makes theman attractive destination country from where it is easy to move on to othercountries that are also part of the Schengen zone.