Migrant groups violently break through the border into Poland
According to a Polish media report, two large groups of refugees crossed the border from Belarus to Poland on their way to the EU. Fences and barriers were forcibly torn down.
IOn Wednesday night two large groups of migrants managed to break through the border, according to a Polish media report. Several dozen migrants had destroyed fortifications near the villages of Krynki and Bialowieza and crossed the border, reported the Polish news agency PAP, citing local broadcaster Bialystok.
The station quoted a spokeswoman for the border guards that in both cases fences and barriers had been violently torn down. Some of the refugees have been returned to Belarus, while others have been released.
Thousands of migrants spent another night in the cold in Belarus on the border with Poland. The state media in Minsk distributed film footage of desperate people who wait in tent camps and around campfires and hope to cross the EU border. Politicians from the authoritarian ruled ex-Soviet republic and helpers brought the migrants, as could be seen on state television, bread, pickled vegetables and water.
The EU accuses the apparatus of power around Lukashenko of having embarked on the smuggling of people and of having migrants flown in from crisis regions.
The security forces of the ex-Soviet republic have a reputation for directing the groups specifically towards the EU border. Many had Germany as their destination, it was said.
The EU member Poland has stationed thousands of soldiers at the border to prevent the barbed wire from breaking through. The Belarusian ruler Alexander Lukashenko called on Tuesday to let people through. They didn’t want to settle in Poland, but mainly in Germany, he said in an interview.
The politician, decried as the “last dictator in Europe”, has a reputation for allowing people from crisis states such as Syria, Afghanistan, Libya and Iraq to be flown in in order to smuggle them towards the EU border. Lukashenko had denied the allegations and held international smuggling networks responsible for organizing people’s trips. He again admitted that he would no longer stop migrants on their way to the EU.
The Acting Foreign Minister Heiko Maas spoke out in favor of sanctions against anyone involved in the smuggling of refugees to Belarus. “Nobody should be allowed to take part in Lukashenko’s inhumane activities with impunity,” said the SPD politician. This applies to countries of origin and transit, but also to airlines that enable people to be transported to Belarus. The European Union is ready to “draw clear conclusions here”.
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