Russia said Wednesday a humanitarian emergency was unfolding at one of its checkpoints on the Arctic border with Finland, where it said hundreds of migrants were stranded in freezing temperatures.
More than 500 asylum seekers have crossed from Russia to Finland since November, Finnish public broadcaster YLE says, mostly from Somalia, Syria, Yemen and Iraq.
Helsinki has accused Moscow of pushing them there deliberately, which Russia denies.
“There is a situation at the border with Finland, at the Salla checkpoint, which can be described as a humanitarian crisis,” the head of Russia’s Murmansk region bordering Finland, Andrei Chibis, said.
“About 300 people from more than 10 foreign countries have been waiting not for hours, but for days to cross the border,” he said.
He blamed Finland for not letting them in.
