The Polish authorities have repeatedly banned the organization from accessing the exclusion zone directly at the border, it said in a statement on Thursday. In Lithuania and Belarus, MSF teams were also unable to obtain a permit to enter the border area.
For months, thousands of migrants have been trying to get from Belarus across the EU’s external borders to Poland or the Baltic states. The EU accuses the Belarusian ruler, Alexander Lukashenko, of having purposefully flown in people from crisis regions to Minsk in order to then smuggle them into the EU.
In Poland, a three-kilometer-wide strip along the border is subject to a restriction on freedom of movement ordered by the Interior Minister. Non-residents are not allowed in, this also applies to aid organizations. “We know that people still cross the border, hide in the woods and need support,” said Frauke Ossig, MSF emergency coordinator for Poland and Lithuania.
On Thursday, Poland’s border guards registered 30 attempts to illegally cross the border within 24 hours. A 30-year-old Egyptian who got lost in a swampy area was only found after a six-hour rescue operation, the authorities said.