Poland today began construction of a new fence on its border with Belarus to prevent the entry of illegal immigrants, an issue that sparked a crisis between Warsaw and Minsk last year.
At 186 km long, ie about half the length of the border (418 km), the five-and-a-half-meter-high metal fence will cost about 353m euros and is expected to be completed in June.
The plan has raised concerns among human rights and environmentalists. The former fear that migrants fleeing their homeland to escape conflict will not be able to apply for asylum, while the latter fear the negative consequences for the flora and fauna of the forest border area.
The European Union has expressed its support for Poland and strongly criticized Belarus. For its part, the Polish government rejected Brussels’ proposal to involve the European service Frontex in border surveillance and passed a law allowing it to repatriate illegal immigrants at the border without waiting for them to apply for asylum.
“We intend to reduce the damage to the maximum,” said Anna Michalska, a spokeswoman for the Polish border guard, according to the PAP news agency.
“The cutting of trees will be limited to the minimum necessary. The wall will be constructed along the border route,” he said, adding that the builders will use only existing routes.
Special belt and barbed wire
Thousands of migrants, mostly from the Middle East, mainly from Iraqi Kurdistan, Syria and Lebanon, but also from Afghanistan, tried to cross the Polish border last year to enter EU territory. Some managed to cross. most continued their journey to Western Europe.
Poland and Western countries have accused Belarus’s regime of encouraging, if not organizing and helping, the influx of migrants by promising easy entry into the EU.
The government of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has denied the allegations in a statement issued Friday stating “Similar, baseless allegations concerning Poland’s foreign policy have been made more than once.
At the height of the crisis, Poland set up a special border zone for humanitarian NGOs and the media, with fences and barbed wire, and sent thousands of troops to help the border guards.
The latter were ordered to repatriate migrants to Belarus.
The measures, and the deaths of about a dozen migrants from the cold or starvation in the Polish forests, sparked a heated public debate in Poland between national border advocates and human rights activists. The latter claim for immigrants the right to seek asylum and not be repatriated while waiting for their application to be considered.
Border guards said today that they had recorded 17 irregular entries in the last 24 hours.
A group of 14 people – 11 Iranians, two Lebanese and a Syrian – “cut the barbed wire fence and entered Poland”, the border guards said on their Twitter account. Another group, including three people from Ghana, was arrested in another border area.
SOURCE: ΑΠΕ-ΜΠΕ
Source From: Capital
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