Warsaw [Poland], August 8: Poland accused its neighbour Belarus of organizing refugee crossings into Polish territory and plans to send an additional 1,000 soldiers to Poland's border to combat this.
"We need many more forces at the border," Polish Interior Minister MaciejWasik announced in Warsaw on Monday, according to the PAP news agency. According to the Polish Border Patrol, 160 migrants tried to cross from Belarus into Poland on Saturday and 147 tried on Sunday.
The numbers this year are significantly higher than in 2022, according to Tomasz Praga, commander of the border guard. He called the smuggling attempts part of a hybrid warfare by Belarus against Poland.
Wasik agreed that Belarus is behind the refugee crossings.
"This would not be possible without the involvement of Belarusian authorities," he said.
There were also frequent cases of Polish border guards and soldiers being attacked by refugees at the border.
So far 5,000 border guards and 2,000 soldiers have already been deployed to Poland's eastern border with Belarus, which is also the external border of the European Union and NATO. They are to receive help from 500 police officers. To secure the border militarily, the Polish army has already moved additional troops to the east because of the emergence of the Russian private army Wagner in Belarus.
During a previous border crisis, starting in the summer of 2021, tens of thousands of migrants and refugees - mostly from the Middle East - crossed or attempted to cross into Poland from neighboring Belarus. At the time the West accused the Belarusian regime of orchestrating the influx with its ally Russia in a "hybrid" attack, a type of warfare using non-military tactics - a charge Minsk denied.
Poland reacted then by setting up a no-access zone at the border, which lasted for nine months and banned non-residents including migrants, aid workers and media from the area.It also sent thousands of troops and police officers to reinforce border guard patrols at the height of the crisis, built a steel wall along the border and approved a law allowing migrants to be forced back into Belarus. People from Afghanistan, Syria, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Algeria and other countries are trying to reach Poland and thus the EU via Belarus.
Source: Qatar Tribune