State Border Service registers 550 border violation attempts in 2022

Azerbaijani State Border Service Chief Elchin Guliyev has said that the agency registered 550 attempts to violate the state border in 2022.

He made the remarks at a meeting of the State Border Service held on January 17 to assess the results of the service and combat activities in 2022, Caliber.Az reports.

In 2022, the State Border Service made the following main achievements:

- On September 12-13, on the section of the state border passing through the territory of the Zangilan district, Azerbaijani units, in response to large-scale provocations of the Armenian armed forces, delivered powerful crushing blows, as a result of which the enemy forces suffered numerous losses and were forced to retreat. As a result, 2 S-300 divisions, 1 S-125 air defence missile launcher, one S-125 air defence fire support station, one R-18 radar station, two electronic radio systems "Resident", 18 enemy posts, numerous enemy manpower were destroyed;

- Some 1,323 hectares of territory were cleared of mines and unexploded ordnance, as a result, 54 anti-personnel, eight anti-tank mines and 85 unexploded ordnance were neutralised;

- During 2022, 550 attempts were made to violate the state border by 774 violators, but thanks to the vigilance of Azerbaijani border guards, these cases were stopped.

- Seven suspects were identified and detained in connection with foreign intelligence services for the purpose of intelligence and subversive activities against Azerbaijan;

- As part of the fight against terrorism, six people who fought abroad were detained, 11 people were identified, 20 people involved in drug trafficking, seven organised criminal groups involved in smuggling were neutralised, 32 Azerbaijani citizens who propagated religious radicalism in the country were identified;

- During 2022, the illegal transportation across the state border of 1 ton 383 kilograms 507 grams of narcotic drugs, the smuggling in the amount of 36.592 million manats [$21.252 million ] was prevented, 24.68 tons of narcotic plants were destroyed;

- Some 559 people were detained for violating the state border, 9,827 people - for violating the border regime, 2,843 people who were wanted, 319 people with forged documents, six people with someone else's documents, one person was detained while trying to cross the border checkpoints secretly;

- as a result of the use of weapons by border guards against border violators in two cases, two people were injured, and in four instances four border violators died.