Monitoring Desk
ISLAMABAD: Over 5,000 pregnant Russian women have entered Argentina in the recent months, including 33 on a single flight on Thursday, said the officials.
The women, the latest arrivals, were all in the final weeks of pregnancy, revealed the national migration agency. The officials believe that the women want to ensure their babies are born in Argentina and obtain Argentinian citizenship.
The officials said that the number of arrivals had increased recently, which is believed to be a result of the war in Ukraine, according to BBC News. Of the 33 women who reached the Argentinian capital, Buenos Aires, on a single flight on Thursday, three were detained because of “problems with their documentation”, joining three others who arrived the previous day, head of the migration agency, Florencia Carignano told La Nacion.
Russian women’s initial claim
The Russian women had primarily claimed they were visiting the Latin-American country as tourists, Florencia Carignano said. “In these cases, it was found that they did not come here to engage in tourism activities. They acknowledged it themselves,” she added.
Florencia Carignano further said the Russian women wanted their children to have Argentinian citizenship because Argentinian passport gives more freedom than a Russian one. “The problem is that the women come to Argentina, sign up their children as Argentinean and leave. Argentinian passport is very secure across the globe. It allows [passport-holders] to enter as many as 171 countries visa-free,” Ms Carignano said. Under the present circumstances, Russians can travel visa-free to only 87 countries.
La Nacion, the country’s leading conservative daily newspaper, attributed the dramatic uptick in the arrivals of Russian citizens to the war in Ukraine, saying that “besides fleeing war and their country’s health service, Russian women are attracted by their right of visa-free entry to Argentina, as well as by the high-quality medicine and variety of hospitals”.
On Saturday, the newspaper reported that Argentinian police has been carrying out raids as part of an investigation into a “million-dollar business and illicit network” that allegedly provided pregnant Russian women and their partners with fake documents issued in record time to allow them to settle in Argentina.
