International

Border Crisis on Poland-Belarus Intensifies, as Troops Are Mobilized

Published

3 years ago

Nov 9, 2021.

Border Crisis on Poland-Belarus Intensifies, as Troops Are Mobilized
Tokarczyk stated that there are currently approximately 4,500 border guards and approximately 9,500 Polish Army soldiers stationed at the border

EKO HOT BLOG reports that the tensions are rising at Poland’s border with Belarus, after Polish officials accused its neighbor of assisting in the movement of migrants toward the border and warned that hundreds of additional military soldiers had been prepared to respond to clashes.

Border Crisis

The director of the Polish border guard warned on Monday evening that groups of people were attempting to cross the border, the latest in a weeks-long migrant crisis at the frontier.

“The situation at the border is difficult. More numerous groups of migrants are led to the border. Attempts are being made to force the border through,” Ewelina Szczepańska said, adding that she was confident that Polish forces could handle the situation.

Poland’s defense ministry said earlier on Monday on Twitter that “a group of migrants is currently located close to Kuznica.” The post was accompanied by aerial footage showing large crowds congregating on the Belarusian side of the border. The ministry added later that: “Currently, migrants have set up a camp in the Kuznica region. They are constantly guarded by the Belarusian services.”

Micha Tokarczyk, a spokeswoman for the Polish Border Guard’s general headquarters, told CNN: “Large groups of migrants are being transported by Belarusian services to the Polish border. We are anticipating their next move and are prepared for any circumstance.”

In a further statement, Tokarczyk stated that there are currently approximately 4,500 border guards and approximately 9,500 Polish Army soldiers stationed at the border because “a group of several thousand migrants is headed towards the Polish border.”

According to the Belarus State Border Committee, which is in charge of the country’s external borders, the migrants near the border want to enter Poland as refugees and do not constitute a security threat.

Border Crisis

A growing number of people have been illegally crossing Poland’s border from Belarus in recent weeks. According to Tokarczyk, since August more than 30,000 migrants have attempted to enter the country.

Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko has previously been accused of manufacturing a migrant crisis on the border by the Prime Ministers of neighbors Poland, Latvia and Lithuania, leading Poland to adopt a bill in October for the construction of a wall along its
border with Belarus.

European officials have also accused Belarus of inciting people to illegally enter into Poland and other European Union countries in order to put pressure on the bloc over the sweeping sanctions imposed on Minsk in June.

The sanctions were imposed by the EU, the United States, and the United Kingdom in response to the Lukashenko government’s forced landing of a Ryanair flight and the detention of an opposition journalist on board, as well as “continued repression” in the former Soviet state.