Immigrants trapped in Belarus made several attempts to force entry into Poland overnight, Warsaw officials said Wednesday. After the incident, Poland announced that it had tightened border security. Meanwhile, the European Union (EU) is preparing to impose sanctions on Belarus because of the crisis.
The bloc’s 27 ambassadors are expected to agree on Wednesday that the growing number of migrants trying to enter Belarus to reach the EU border amounts to a “hybrid war” of President Alexander Lukashenko.
“Mr Lukashenko unscrupulously exploits people seeking refuge as hostages for his cynical power play,” German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said on Twitter, describing the images of the Belarus border as “awful.” “But the European Union cannot be blackmailed,” Maas said.
The EU accuses Belarus of encouraging migrants – from the Middle East, Afghanistan and Africa – to try to cross the border illegally in revenge for previous sanctions imposed on Minsk for human rights abuses.
Lukashenko denied having used immigrants as weapons. His close ally, Russia, suggested on Tuesday (9) that the EU should pay him to stop migrants from trying to cross.
Thousands of people converged on the border this week, where barbed wire fences and Polish soldiers repeatedly blocked their entry.
Some of the immigrants, trapped in freezing conditions due to the weather in the region. They were short on food, makeshift shelter, and were using logs, shovels and other implements to try to cross the border.
“It wasn’t a calm night. In fact, there were many attempts to breach the Polish border,” Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak told PR1.
A video of the border reveals children and babies among the people trapped there. “There are many families here with babies between two and four months old. They haven’t eaten anything for the past three days,” said one of the people at the border. Immigrants did not want to be identified.
About 15,000 Polish soldiers are on the border
The Polish border guard service reported 599 illegal border crossing attempts on Tuesday – with 9 people arrested and 48 sent back. Blaszczak said the force of Polish soldiers stationed at the border had been boosted from 12,000 to 15,000 men.
After midnight, two groups of immigrants were rejected. One that had about 200 people near the town of Bialowieza and another of about two dozen was rejected near Dubicze, a spokeswoman said.
The EU’s neighboring state Lithuania, which followed in Poland’s footsteps by imposing a state of emergency on its border, said 281 migrants were rejected that day, the highest number since August when these resistances began.
The EU accuses Lukashenko of using “gangster-style” tactics in the months-long border stalemate, in which at least seven migrants died.
The new EU sanctions would target about 30 individuals and entities, including Belarus’ foreign minister, three EU diplomats said.
Lukashenko’s government blames Europe and the United States for the plight of people trapped at the border. Russia accused the EU of not defending its own humanitarian values and of trying to “strangle” Belarus.
The crisis erupted after the EU, the United States and Britain imposed sanctions on Belarus for its violent crackdown on mass street protests that were triggered by Lukashenko’s disputed electoral victory in 2020.
Poland denies accusations by humanitarian groups that it is violating international asylum law by pushing migrants back to Belarus instead of accepting their requests for protection. Warsaw says its actions are legal.
Some migrants complained of being repeatedly pushed back and forth by Polish and Belarusian border guards, leaving them short of food and water.
“Yesterday we helped to protect and evacuate a group of immigrants,” said Michal Swiatkowski, a member of the Polish Red Cross rescue group.
“There were 16 people, mostly children. They didn’t need medical care, although we donated warm clothes, blankets and some food,” he said.
Russia sends bombers to patrol Belarus’ airspace
Two Russian strategic bombers flew over Belarus on Wednesday (10), the RIA news agency said, citing the Russian Ministry of Defense.
Amid rising tensions between Minsk and Warsaw over a migrant crisis at their mutual border, Tu-22M3 bombers patrolled Belarusian airspace.
Merkel urges Putin to put pressure on Belarus on “instrumentalization of migrants”
German Chancellor Angela Merkel told Russian President Vladimir Putin by telephone that the “instrumentalization of migrants” in Belarus was inhumane and unacceptable.
She asked him to put pressure on the Belarus government on the matter, her spokesperson said Wednesday.
Reference: CNN Brasil
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