In a former industrial area of Vilnius, Lithuania, a fashionable café is hosting an evening of cultural exchange. Locals queue up to order the Afghan dishes on offer, prepared by an Afghan asylum-seeker. As the tables inside have filled up quickly, guests spill out into the yard with their servings of pilaf, lamb and courgettes. One of the women serving food, Marie*, is from Cameroon. She fled when she was accused of taking part in the ongoing civil war as part of a separatist group and persecuted by the government for this. She smiles at customers as she plates up their orders, having been allowed temporary leave from the detention camp where she has been held for a year. In July 2020, Marie, like many others, crossed the border from Belarus into Lithuania by foot.
Out in the yard of the café, local activists from the recently formed Sienos Grupė (or ‘Border Group’) sit together with other asylum-seekers, chatting and introducing people to one another. The atmosphere appears laidback but there’s also unease. A shared mobile phone is passed around; Sienos Grupė have just been contacted by a large group of people attempting to cross the border into Lithuania from Belarus. The activists try to assess the number of people in the group and what support they might need, but the signal at the border is poor and the group doesn’t speak English. If they are picked up by Lithuanian border guards they will likely be turned back into Belarus, a practice known as ‘pushback’.
