In the first quarter of 2016, 840 cases of illegal border-crossing between border crossing points were reported by the Eastern Partnership Risk Analysis Network member countries (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine). More than half of these cases involved nationals of Eastern Partnership and CIS countries, mostly Ukrainians, Moldovans and Russians. Among these, more than four in five cases were linked to suspected smuggling or other forms of crime not related to migration.
The rest were mainly nationals of Afghanistan and Vietnam. The number of facilitators detected in the first quarter nearly quadrupled from the previous three months, mainly linked with irregular migration on the Arctic route from the Russian Federation to Finland.