Two hundred refugees break through fences, Belarusians shoot in the air. Merkel calls Putin: “Take action to stop these inhuman actions”
BIALYSTOK (POLAND). Kruglany is the last “free” village before the emergency zone patrolled by the men of the Polish army and border guards, a contingent that the Polish Defense Minister Blaszczak has brought to 15,000 men, who could break through 20,000 with the reservists already in alert. We are less than ten kilometers from the Kuźnica border, where for the past three days thousands of migrants have been stationed in dramatic conditions in the hope of being able to reach the territory of the European Union. A few kilometers further from the checkpoint you can see about thirty houses distributed on two sides, in the middle a trace of earth that leads to the national road 19, the very long strip of asphalt that cuts through all of Poland, from the southern tip of Barwinek , vis-a-vis Slovakia, up to Belarus.
An endless queue of heavy vehicles is waiting to be able to pass on the other side, around the road hauliers hoping for a prompt reopening of the checkpoint, closed for two days now, stubborn not to want to detour to the Bobrowniki border, seventy kilometers further south, from where there are news of queues over thirty hours to be able to pass in Belarus. “You can hear the noise of the helicopters all day long, the police sirens, the gunshots in the distance, the army troops passing by: it seems to be at war,” says Janusz Pawłowski, a 68-year-old pensioner who he has always lived in the village. It is not only the Polish helicopters in patrol operation that fly over the skies of Kuźnica, in this part of Poland that really seems to have entered the war. On the Belarusian side of the border, in fact, yesterday, two Russian Tu-22M3 long-range bombers carried out a joint exercise with the Minsk army, to verify, according to what was announced by the Moscow Ministry of Defense “the coordination operational with the ground command posts of Russia and Belarus ”, with a view to integrated air defense between the two states.
“The exploitation of migrants against the European Union by the Belarusian regime is inhuman and completely unacceptable – reads the note from Angela Merkel’s spokesperson after yesterday’s telephone conversation with Vladimir Putin, during which the Chancellor allegedly asked the Russian president to “To exert its influence on Minsk”. Putin reiterated his support for the idea of direct contact between the EU and Aleksandr Lukashenko, a concept also reiterated by the Russian Foreign Minister Sergej Lavrov, according to which «Belarus has repeatedly suggested opening a consultative table at the border, to resolve the question on the basis of international law “.
During the night, a group of about 200 migrants managed to cross the barbed wire cordon at the localities of Krynki and Bialowieza, while another sixteen people tried to enter Poland near Dubicze Cerkiewne: in all there are more than 350 pushbacks implemented yesterday by the Polish border guards. “We have issued 48 deportation orders and arrested nine people. Five of them are Lebanese citizens, three Iraqis and one Syrian. The detainees have already declared their intention to apply for international protection – Major Katarzyna Zdanowicz explained at a press conference – in total, since October 26, we have issued over 1050 expulsion decrees from Poland “. Zdanowicz then confirmed that firing noises and “unconventional signals, such as the sound of reloading weapons” constantly arrive from the Belarusian territory.
In the night, columns of smoke continue to rise from the Belarusian side of the border, traces of the fires lit by migrants who try to resist the rigid night temperatures as best they can, now down to minus two degrees Celsius: at least ten refugees have died from frostbite in these same forests, in the past few weeks. Five others, according to unconfirmed information, may have lost their lives in the past 48 hours. “We cannot allow them to invade Poland – repeats Janusz – a religious war would break out and this is a Catholic country. But we must help them, it is not possible to leave them to die of cold in the woods ».
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