Monday, October 18, 2021
Escape to Germany
Police demand controls at the border with Poland
A police union leader has reportedly warned of a “collapse” on the German-Polish border. He compares the situation with the 2015 crisis, when many refugees entered the country uncontrolled. He’s also worried about the health of his colleagues.
The Belarusian ruler Alexander Lukashenko allows thousands of migrants to cross the border to Poland – from there apparently many continue to flee to Germany. In a letter to Federal Interior Minister Horst Seehofer, the chairman of the Federal Police Union, Heinz Teggert, calls for temporary controls to be set up at the German-Polish border. The letter should be available to the “Bild” newspaper.
“For several months, the number of apprehensions has been rising almost explosively,” the newspaper quoted the union leader as saying. Teggert compares the situation with the refugee crisis in 2015. The number of illegal “Entry and smuggling at the border with Poland “is comparable to the figures from 2013 at the Austrian border. At that time, migrants entered Germany uncontrolled, and in 2015 the” security architecture “of the border guards collapsed can only through the “Introduction of temporary border controls to Poland “will be prevented.
Teggert is also concerned about the health of the emergency services. “Our colleagues are also exposed to a significant health risk, as SARS COV-2 infections, especially in the migrants’ countries of origin (Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Iran, Afghanistan, etc.), are still very high and only very rare be officially recorded, “he writes. The smugglers also failed to comply with hygiene regulations in order to curb the risk of infection among the refugees.
The national conservative government in Warsaw has already declared a state of emergency in the border region with Belarus; Journalists and representatives of aid organizations are not allowed in. Latvia, Lithuania and Poland accuse the Belarusian ruler Alexander Lukashenko of organizing refugees from crisis regions to the EU’s external border.
In response to tightened Western sanctions against his country, Lukashenko announced at the end of May that Minsk would no longer prevent migrants from continuing to travel to the EU. Since then, reports of attempted illegal border crossings at the EU’s external borders with Belarus have increased. Poland has erected a barbed wire fence at the border, which is to be converted into a permanent fortification.