2024-10-02 09:02:43
Norway may erect a fence along part or all of its 198-kilometer border with Russia, the kingdom’s Justice Minister Emily Enger Mell said, as quoted by the Associated Press. The agency notes that the decision was inspired by a similar project in neighboring Finland.
“The border fence is very interesting, not only because it can be a deterrent, but also because it contains sensors and technology to allow the detection of people moving close to the border,” Minister Enger Mell said during an interview with Norwegian public television. EN Air Co (NRK) aired last night.
She said the government is currently considering various measures to strengthen the border with Russia in the Arctic, such as fences, increasing the number of border guards and strengthening monitoring.
The Storskog border crossing, where there have been only a few illegal crossing attempts in the last few years, is the only official one between Norway and Russia.
If the security situation in the region worsens, the Norwegian government is ready to close the border quickly, said Enger Mell, who visited neighboring Finland this summer to study how the entire 1,340-kilometer Finnish-Russian border was closed.
The Finnish government was forced to close all border crossings leading to Russia late last year after more than 1,300 undocumented third-country migrants entered the country in three months, soon after the country became a NATO member.
To prevent Moscow from using migrants in what the Finnish government describes as a “hybrid war” waged by Russia, Helsinki is currently building fences up to 200 kilometers (124 miles) in total in separate sections along the border zone it is part of from the northern flank of NATO and serves as the external border of the European Union.
Inspired by Finland’s project, Enger Mell said a similar fence could be a good idea for Norway as well. According to EN Co, its statement was backed up by the police in the northern Norwegian fylke (county) of Finnmark.
“This is a measure that could become applicable to all or part of the border,” Enger Mell said.
The Storskog border crossing is currently surrounded by a 200-meter-long and 3.5-meter-high fence erected in 2016 after about 5,000 migrants and asylum seekers crossed from Russia into Norway a year earlier.