“The migratory pressure at the Belarusian-Polish border which is orchestrated by Lukashenko and Putin carries the same risks,” Stanisław Żaryn, the spokesman for Poland's security-services chief, tweeted on Saturday.
Since September, Poland’s Border Guard has recorded over 5,000 attempts to illegally cross the border. Also at the start of this month, Poland's President Andrzej Duda declared a state of emergency in parts of two regions along the border.
On Friday, a group of Iraqi migrants was detained on Polish soil. One of the men died, reportedly from a heart attack. Last Sunday, the Border Guard reported that corpses of three people who tried to cross into the country were found on the Polish side and one more just inside Belarus. The causes of death have not yet been given.
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.”
(jh)
Source: PAP