Tension at the border between Poland and Belarus due to the migration crisis

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Poland summoned Belarus’ diplomatic representative to the country on Friday after Polish authorities said Belarusian forces fired – possibly salvos – at Polish soldiers at the common border.

The incident marked a escalating tensions at the border between the two countries, which is also part of the Eastern border of the European Union (EU). The Polish government accuses Belarus of encouraging migrants from the Middle East and Africa to cross the border in large numbers to Poland.

Polish forces have responded in many cases force migrants to return to Belarus. Some asylum seekers have dead trapped between the two countries.

Anna Michalska, spokesperson for the Polish border guards, said that Belarusian soldiers opened fire on Polish soldiers across the border on Thursday, although he did not give further details.

Michalska said that no one was injured and cartridges were probably used. He said the guards were under increasing pressure and stress due to numerous incidents of objects thrown at the Polish military from the Belarusian side.

The border area is restricted under the state of emergency imposed by Poland early September and neither journalists nor human rights defenders can monitor the situation there. It was not possible to independently verify the claims of the Polish authorities.

The charge d’affaires of Belarus has been summoned to the Foreign Ministry on this matterforeign relations spokesman Lukasz Jasina said as quoted by the state news agency BOILED.

At the end of the meeting, the charge d’affaires, Alaksandr Czasnouski told reporters that “the information about the shooting is not true”., reported BOILED.

In Belarus, the Border guard spokesman Anton Bychkovsky rejected the shooting allegations, claiming Belarusian guards had not used their weapons in the past 24 hours, according to Russian agency Tass.

EU accuses Belarusian government Alexander Lukashenko of allow the smuggling of illegal immigrants from the Middle East and Africa in retaliation for sanctions imposed by the EU.

EU migration pact remains blocked

Meanwhile, the The European Pact on Migration and Asylum remains blocked and without sign of a short-term agreement, while complaints of hot returns arise in several countries of the European Union and a dozen member states demand that the The EU funds barriers against irregular migration.

These questions were discussed this Friday in the Council of Interior Ministers of the Twenty-seven.

Last week, various journalistic investigations were made public which accuse police officers of Greece and Croatia for participating in alleged hot returns of irregular migrants at their external borders. Commissioner Johansson considered the allegations “very worrying” and said that was why she had raised the issue at today’s Council.

In addition, 12 Member States of the European Union have asked the EU to finance the construction of “Physical barriers” to protect the external borders, given the increasing use of migrants as a political weapon by third countries.

In a letter to the European Commission, Austria, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland and Slovakia they stress that “physical barriers appear to be an effective measure of border protection, serving the interest of the whole EU, and not just the frontline Member States”.

The Commission recently warned that more and more states are using the migration as a political weapon and called on member countries to respond to these attacks.

European headlines reviewed the situation on the various migration routes, which experienced a an increase in arrivals over the past year, although the number of irregular migrants on all routes remains well below pre-crisis levels in 2015. The number of irregular border crossings in the first nine months of 2021 reached around 120,000, compared to nearly 77,000 during the same period in 2020.

(With information from AP, EFE, AFP)

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