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Authorities draw up report analyzing border risks during world hockey championship

Belarus' State Border Committee (SBC) has drawn up a report analyzing risks at the border during this May's world hockey championship in Minsk, Aleh Masharaw departmental head at the SBC, said at a conference on Wednesday, BelaPAN said.

Work on the report involved border control experts representing the Baltic states, Poland, Moldova and Ukraine, the European Union's border security agency Frontex and the CIS Council of Border Troops Chiefs.

After the report is finalized in early April, it will be published and sent out to the countries concerned.

Zeynal Hajiyev, head of the Belarus office of the International Organization for Migration, said that representatives of the organization had also contributed to the report. "It's important for a country to understand risks and prepare to diminish or eliminate them," he said.

Mr. Hajiyev warned that illegal migrants planning to travel to the European Union through Belarus could take advantage of easier travel rules to be introduced by the country for the tournament.

"On the one hand, they need to make it as much easy for fans to travel as possible, but they should not forget about security," he said.