Updated:
Several thousand people are stuck on the border between Belarus and Poland. Two large groups of refugees have now managed to cross the border into Poland.
Warsaw – According to a Polish media report, two larger groups of refugees broke the border from Belarus to Poland on their hoped-for way to the EU.
Several dozen migrants managed to destroy fences near the villages of Krynki and Białowieża and to cross the border, reported the Polish news agency PAP on Tuesday evening, citing the local broadcaster Białystok. 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.
Hundreds on the Belarusian side
There are hundreds of people on the Belarusian side. According to the Polish authorities, the refugees had received food from Belarusian organizations, it 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. dpa
#Media #Migrants #cross #border #Belarus #Poland