Thursday November 11, 2021
UN Security Council meets
No relaxation at the borders with Poland
The situation for the people on the border between Poland and Belarus remains catastrophic. For the third night in a row, thousands of refugees are waiting there in freezing temperatures in a makeshift camp. According to Belarusian information, more people are said to be on the way there.
With temperatures around freezing point, thousands of people on the Belarusian-Polish border continue to wait for help even days later. State-affiliated Belarusian media published on Thursday night, among other things, videos of children crowding around a truck with drinking water. Independent journalists are not allowed into the border area. According to Belarusian information, more people from the interior of the country are said to have run to the makeshift tent camps.
The situation on the EU’s eastern external border will now also preoccupy the UN Security Council. France, Estonia and Ireland requested the meeting of the most powerful UN body for the afternoon (local time) in New York, as the German press agency learned from security council circles. The council is supposed to meet behind closed doors.
Meanwhile, the European states are preparing further sanctions against the authoritarian-led Belarus. After consultations with US President Joe Biden on Wednesday in the White House in Washington, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen spoke of a “hybrid attack by an authoritarian regime”. According to diplomats, a new EU sanction instrument, which could be used against airlines or tour operators, is to be formally adopted next Monday at a meeting of EU foreign ministers.
Merkel calls for a humane solution
Chancellor Angela Merkel called for a humane solution to the refugee problem on the border between Poland, Lithuania and Latvia and Belarus. You have to solve the problem so “that it is humane,” she said on Wednesday evening. “Unfortunately it doesn’t do that at the moment,” she added. “On the other hand, it is also important that the EU can protect its external borders.” In a telephone conversation she asked the Russian President Vladimir Putin to influence the Belarusian ruler Alexander Lukashenko. “Because people are being used here. They are victims of an inhumane policy. Something must be done about this.”
Belarus is financially dependent on Russia and receives support from Moscow even in the current situation. The Belarusian ruler Alexander Lukashenko, often criticized as the “last dictator of Europe”, is criticized for allowing migrants to be flown in from crisis areas and then pushing them towards the Polish border. The presumption is that the 67-year-old wants to avenge the sanctions that the EU has already imposed for the repression of civil society and the democratic opposition.
The situation on the Polish-Belarusian border has deteriorated dramatically since the beginning of the week, when thousands of migrants made their way to the EU from the Belarusian side. On several occasions, larger groups have tried in vain to break through the fence system that Poland uses to prevent them from crossing the border.