EU executive: let Belarus border nations detain asylum seekers for 16 weeks

Rights group criticise EU Commission over proposals for emergency measure to tackle crisis

Rights groups have criticised the European Commission after it proposed that three countries sharing a border with Belarus should be allowed to hold people in special asylum processing centres for up to 16 weeks, up from the current maximum of four.

Top officials at the EU executive said the emergency measures would give Poland, Lithuania and Latvia the flexibility to deal with an unprecedented situation caused by what the EU calls a hybrid attack from Alexander Lukashenko's Belarusian regime.