Norway cracks down on refugees using bicycle loophole to gain access from Russia

Norway says it will 'send back' refugees who had taken advantage of a legal loophole to cross its Arctic border with Russia on bicycles,

Norway has said it will send back refugees who had taken advantage of a legal loophole to cross its Arctic border with Russia on bicycles, a report on the Guardian explains.

Some 5,500 people, most of them Syrians, have reportedly cycled through the Arctic Circle Storskog crossing throughout the past year, where they took advantage of a loophole in border rules.

The Guardian reports that Russia does not allow people to cross on foot and Norway does not let in drivers carrying people without documents, but bicycles are permitted at both ends.

According to reports, Norway’s first immigration minister, Sylvi Listhaug has said that all those who crossed at Storskog without a transit visa would be sent back to Russia.

On Thursday Norwegian police confirmed that the refugees would not be forced to return across the border on two wheels, and could instead be taken by bus.

Hundreds of thousands of refugees fled to Europe last year by boat across the Mediterranean, but a smaller number took the long way around, travelling to Norway, a member of the visa-free Schengen area, via the Russian Arctic.

According to the report, the refugees typically obtained Russian visas in Damascus or Beirut, then flew to Moscow and took a train to Murmansk and on to the border into Norway.

The two countries began bouncing refugees between them in November after Norway said it would send back asylum seekers with Russian residency permits, but the country refused to accept them.