Refugee exoduses complicate border security efforts in conflict zones — CIS official

AKTAU /Kazakhstan/, September 2. /TASS/. Maintaining border security is currently being complicated because of refugee attempts to escape from territories affected by civil wars and conflicts, such as Afghanistan, Head of the CIS Anti-Terrorism Center Andrei Novikov told TASS. "Maintaining the security of borders today has been exacerbated by the problem of civilians who are fleeing areas affected by civil war. The risks of militants infiltrating into the territory of our states do exist, of course. The fact that many refugees have no identity documents makes the task of identifying them and separating them from those individuals who pose a threat to our states much more difficult," he pointed out. Given such risks, countries used "packages of diplomatic and legal solutions." For example, Uzbekistan temporarily closed the Termez checkpoint on the border with Afghanistan, but, at the same time, it announced its support for refugees’ transit to other countries. "All attempts to illegally cross the border will be punished in accordance with the national legislation. Russia guaranteed the evacuation of its citizens in accordance with its national legislation as well," he noted. "Enhancing border security is a common task. It is impossible to divvy up the intense work along the lines of border guard services, intelligence and law enforcement agencies, this is a single mechanism," he explained. "We believe that the technologies of interstate search practiced during the (Caspian-Anti-Terror-2021) exercise and the use of databases of wanted individuals created by the CIS Anti-Terrorism Center will be employed even more intensively. In recent years, we have undertaken major efforts to guarantee the high technological effectiveness of the search process, fast passage and getting the necessary information from a specialized database. All that should work," Novikov stressed. Read more