Following a weekly Cabinet meeting, government spokesman Piotr Müller told reporters the request for a 60-day extension came as the situation on the Belarus border remained “very difficult.”
“Since this hybrid war, for this is the correct way to call it, began, some 10,000 people have tried to cross the Polish-Belarusian frontier," Müller said.
He added that "hundreds of migrants" were "making illegal attempts to enter Poland every day."
Yet the country’s Border Guard, police and armed forces “are working to prevent this in every way,” Müller told a news conference.
“It is our duty to secure the border not just of Poland, but also the European Union,” he said.
On Monday, Interior Minister Mariusz Kamiński said that roughly one in 10 illegal migrants detained at the frontier with Belarus was “potentially linked to terrorist groups.”
Poland and fellow EU members Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia have accused Belarus' strongman leader Alexander Lukashenko of organising a wave of illegal migrants seeking to enter the bloc as part of what officials have called a "hybrid war."
At the start of this month, Poland's President Andrzej Duda declared a state of emergency in parts of two regions along the country's eastern border with Belarus in a bid to stem the flow of migrants from countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan.
The 30-day state of emergency gives authorities broader powers to monitor and control the movement of people.
(pm/gs)
Source: PAP