Monday, September 27, 2021
Migrants at the Belarus border
Poland wants to extend the controversial state of emergency
People have been entering the EU illegally via Belarus for months. Poland blames the Belarusian ruler Lukashenko for this. The government in Warsaw wants to extend the emergency in the border area. Six people have died there in an unexplained manner.
Despite several migrant deaths on its border with Belarus, Poland wants to extend the state of emergency imposed there. Interior Minister Mariusz Kaminski announced this in Warsaw. Meanwhile, the EU Commission asked Poland to investigate the deaths. The European Court of Human Rights also got involved.
It is “completely unacceptable that people are dying at the EU’s external borders,” said EU Interior Commissioner Ylva Johansson. Warsaw must create “transparency” here. You tried in vain to talk to Interior Minister Kaminski about it. Now she will travel to Warsaw on Thursday.
Poland, Lithuania and Latvia have been complaining for a few months about the increased arrival of migrants, especially from the Middle East, on their borders with Belarus. A total of six migrants have been killed in the region in the past two months. The circumstances remained largely unclear. Aid organizations say that the border authorities detained people for weeks and did not provide any assistance.
Poland has sealed off its 418-kilometer border with Belarus. Due to a declared emergency, journalists and aid organizations are also formally prohibited from entering. Non-governmental organizations recently warned of a humanitarian crisis due to falling temperatures. They accuse the government in Warsaw of preventing people from applying for asylum in violation of international law.
Retaliation by Lukashenko?
The Polish government has so far been unimpressed. Interior Minister Kaminski pointed out, among other things, that some arrested migrants “evidence” of their radical sentiments had been found. According to Polish sources, 8,200 people have been prevented from crossing the border from Belarus and 1,200 have been arrested for illegal crossings in the past few months.
The EU is assuming retaliation by the Belarusian ruler Alexander Lukashenko for sanction decisions taken in Brussels. It is believed that the Belarusian authorities are bringing migrants into the country in a targeted manner and smuggling them to the borders with the eastern EU states.
The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg intervened in the case of 32 Afghan migrants who have been stuck between Poland and Belarus for weeks. According to their own statements, they fled after the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan and crossed the Polish-Belarusian border in August. Polish border guards would then have brought them back to Belarus.
The Strasbourg judges urged Poland to provide people with “food, water, clothing, adequate medical care and, if possible, temporary shelter”. In addition, an allegedly forced return to Belarus was not permitted.