RUSSIA-LATVIA The plight of Russians fleeing for saying no

The Silema website describes the conditions of refugees who fled to avoid fighting in the war against Ukraine and are interned in the Mutsenieka camp. The tragedies of those who find themselves on the margins of the ongoing conflict and are not welcomed by either side.

Riga (/Agencies) – According to Latvian customs, 13,683 people crossed the border illegally from Russia and Belarus in 2023, and only 428 were recognised as refugees on humanitarian grounds. In 2024, only 126 people tried to enter, with a stricter border surveillance regime, and only a few were allowed to stay legally in the Baltic country. These are people seeking a better life and fleeing the war, which yesterday showed all its horror with the missile fired at the children’s hospital in Kiev. Men who do not want to die or kill, are afraid of being mobilised or forcibly recruited into the army of the invaders.

They are citizens of Russia, or Central Asian migrants living in Russia, who aspire to obtain European visas even if they cross the borders clandestinely, turn themselves in to the authorities and request asylum. While their applications are being assessed, they are detained in camps, shelters or even in prison. The Sistema website has tried to contact them while they await their fate for months or years.

One of the refugee camps is located in Mutsenieka, a few kilometres from Riga, the capital of Latvia, just behind the huge Ikea complex. If you go there by bus, at the last stops you no longer find any Latvian citizens, and you are together with Nigerians, Syrians, Libyans, Moroccans, Tajiks, Uzbeks and Russians of mixed nationality, the most likely to be sent to the front, in a mixture of languages ​​and national customs. In Mutsenieka there are two centres, one open and one closed to the public, that is, a hostel and a prison, with very similar standards of living.

In the “open” centre, the difference is the noise and the joy, despite the unfavourable conditions. There are many volunteers who bring something to eat, although the daily menu does not go much further than a plate of normal rice. In the “closed” centre, as Said, one of the refugees, says, “it is very quiet, but the food is much better.” He was locked up for six months, and now lives in the shelter, free to talk to journalists. His friend Ibrahim (not his real name, so that he is not repatriated to Russia) was locked up in the camp for two years.

One of the correspondents managed to open the prison door by shouting in Russian, until one of the guards came out and said: “I knew that only a Russian with legs can come to these places, so who are you going to meet?” However, all prisoners have the right to meet people by calling the prison phone and making an appointment, and undergoing yet another search. The System correspondents managed to meet Ibrahim, in a tracksuit, clean-washed and shaven, cheerful and helpful, who speaks Russian without an accent.

The refugee said that he was an official in one of the prefectures of a city in the Caucasus, and that while he was repairing one of the computers he had found documents with a list of people who were to be kidnapped, for ransom or sent to the war in Ukraine. Ibrahim decided to warn all the people threatened with kidnapping, and the next day the mother of one of them came to the prefecture to complain, saying that she was going to write to Putin, and that only thanks to a good person had she managed to get her son out.

That same night, Ibrahim fled to Poland, but was arrested at the Belarusian border, until by other means, after adventures between France and Turkey, he ended up in the Latvian camp, trying to avoid repatriation to Russia, which “would be a death sentence.” There are many stories like this, they are the dramas of those who are on the sidelines of the ongoing conflict and are not welcomed by either side, because there is no side on which only “the good guys” live.

Photo: Flickr / Eduards Osis