Lithuania 2021 © Vidmantas Balkunas/BNS

Lithuania

Our work in Lithuania

At the beginning of 2022, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) started to provide medical and mental health care to migrants and asylum seekers held in detention centers across Lithuania.

What’s happening in Lithuania

MSF started offering medical and humanitarian support in Lithuania in September 2021, with the aim of offering medical and humanitarian support to migrants and asylum seekers crossing into the country from Belarus. Initially, our teams provided mental health care at nine border posts, where migrants and asylum seekers—from countries including Iraq, Democratic Republic of Congo, Syria, Cameroon, Nigeria, and Afghanistan—were detained in dire conditions.

Our work in Lithuania

In January 2022, our teams started to conduct basic medical and mental health consultations for people who had been transferred to Foreigners’ Registration Centres (FRCs) in Kybartai and Medininkai. Many were experiencing distress related to detention and limited freedom of movement, as well as uncertainty about their future and the asylum process.

On May 6, 2022, we suspended activities in the two FRCs, as conditions imposed on MSF by the Lithuanian State Border Guard Service created an environment that would have compromised medical ethics and humanitarian principles, and ultimately the quality of care.

After that date, we offered remote psychological support to detained people who asked us for assistance, and ran informal group sessions outside FRCs for people with limited freedom of movement. By December 2022, the FRCs were nearly empty due to continuous pushbacks at the border preventing people from entering the country. This significantly limited MSF’s ability to reach those in need.

How you can help

Not everyone can treat patients in the field. But everyone can do something.

Some humanitarian crises make the headlines—others don’t. Unrestricted support from our donors allows us to mobilize quickly and efficiently to provide lifesaving medical care to the people who need it most, whether those needs are in the spotlight or not. And your donation is 100 percent tax-deductible.