Friday 19th November 2021
Evacuated by the border guards
Hundreds of migrants are evacuating camps in Belarus
Thousands of refugees have been freezing on the Belarus-Poland border for weeks. One of their temporary camps is now being cleared at the Bruzgi border crossing. People left it “on a voluntary basis,” claims the Belarusian border guards.
In Belarus, according to the border guards, hundreds of migrants have left a makeshift camp on the border with Poland. On Thursday, all refugees from the camp near the Bruzgi border crossing were brought to a nearby logistics center “on a voluntary basis”, the Belarusian border guard said on the Telegram messenger service.
The authorities also published photos of the apparently abandoned camp, in which around 2,000 people had been waiting for the past few days. On Tuesday evening, more than a thousand people had already been brought from the camp to a huge warehouse. However, according to the Belarusian authorities, around 800 more slept in tents or around campfires in the open air at temperatures below 0 degrees. These migrants have now also been brought to the warehouse because of “deteriorating weather conditions”, as the border guard announced. There they receive warm food and warm clothing. The provisional camp was located in a wooded area not far from the Bruzgi border crossing.
On Tuesday, Polish security forces used tear gas and water cannons against refugees there. The Polish border guards have now confirmed the evacuation of the camp. For weeks, thousands of refugees from the Middle East, including many Kurds from northern Iraq, have been stuck in icy temperatures on the EU’s external border with Belarus, especially on the border with Poland. The EU accuses Belarusian ruler Alexander Lukashenko of deliberately smuggling refugees into the border area with the EU.