60,000 Illegal Migrants Prevented From Crossing Russian Borders in 2002

In 2002, the Russian Federal Frontier Service, or the FFS, prevented 60,000 illegal migrants from crossing Russian borders, FFS head Konstantin Totsky told a RIA Novosti press conference on Monday.

During the past year, the border guards checked more than 86 million people and more than 13.7 million transport vehicles, revealing about 4,000 people who were trying to cross the border with forged /or somebody else's/ documents and 350 people who were banned from the territory of Russia, he said.

"Illegal migration remains a potential threat to stability of the border regions," stressed the FFS director. According to his words, the migrants come from 30 foreign countries, and some of them are trying to cross the Russian territory on their way to Western Europe.

At the same time, he said the "Mediterranean route" remained the most "dangerous and mass-scale" route for Europe. Every year, according to the information of the FFS, about 500,000 migrants reach Western Europe and stay there illegally.