Saturday, January 01, 2022
Mostly the same goal
Still hundreds on the Poland-Belarus border
Compared to the situation in autumn, the situation on the border between Belarus and Poland has now eased. But hundreds of migrants are still waiting in the area. They usually have the same goal.
Hundreds of migrants and refugees will remain in Belarus on the border with Poland in the new year – in the hope of acceptance into the European Union. 600 people are housed in an emergency shelter in the warehouse of a logistics center in Brusgi; they will be helped, said the Belarusian Red Cross in Minsk on request. Among them are men, women and children. Many have Germany as their destination; Last week, at least one man who had been stranded on the border for a long time managed to enter the Federal Republic, as the dpa learned from the Iraqi’s German family.
Counter-sanctions also came into force in Belarus on Saturday in response to sanctions from the EU, the US and other states. As of January 1st, the import of a large part of goods from the west is prohibited. The food purchase embargo affects meat and dairy products, among other things. According to the government in Minsk, it is a reaction to the “discriminatory policies and the unfriendly actions taken in relation to our country”.
Relations with Russia even closer
The embargo mainly affects food producers in the EU. You face a loss of income. According to the Belarusian government, manufacturers in the western states that had imposed sanctions against Minsk earned the equivalent of around half a billion euros last year. Belarus is now expanding its economic relations with neighboring Russia. The EU had previously put new sanctions in force against those involved in the smuggling of migrants. The USA, Canada and Great Britain also adopted punitive measures.
The European Union accuses Belarus of deliberately bringing people into the country from crisis areas and then pushing them to the borders with Poland, Lithuania and Latvia. People have been waiting there for months and are hoping to continue their journey to Europe. The ruler Alexander Lukashenko in Belarus is criticized in the West for using the migrants to destabilize the situation in Europe. According to the border guards there, Poland alone registered around 40,000 attempts at illegal crossing at its border with Belarus last year.