UN voices concern about migrant crisis at Poland-Belarus border

The United Nations (UN) has voiced concern about the ongoing migration crisis at Poland’s border with Belarus, stressing that the issue should be settled based on international law and should not be used for political purposes.

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was following with concern the situation at the Belarus-Poland border, where hundreds of desperate migrants trying to cross into the European Union are stranded in freezing temperatures.

“He reiterates the importance of ensuring that migration and refugee issues are dealt with according to humanitarian principles and international law. Such situations should not be used for political purposes or become a cause of tension between states,” Dujarric said.

Poland has closed its border with Belarus and has sent armored vehicles and troops to the border amid an escalation of the migration crisis. Belarus’ President Alexander Lukashenko has accused Warsaw of blackmailing his country with the deployment.

Poland blackmailing Belarus with military deployment to border: Lukashenko

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko accuses Poland of blackmailing his country by sending armored vehicles and troops to the border amid an escalation of a migration crisis.

Observers have warned that Poland’s deployment could trigger a confrontation on their common border.

The West accuses Belarus of coordinating an unprecedented wave of asylum seekers in retaliation for existing sanctions imposed by the bloc on the country. Lukashenko has denied the allegations.

Meanwhile, Russia has warned that a humanitarian catastrophe is looming over the Polish-Belarusian border, adding that Europe has departed from its declared ideals in this situation.

“The situation is indeed highly tense, a trend [is observed] of increasing tension which can only concern us. A looming humanitarian catastrophe is evident against the background of the unwillingness of our European colleagues to demonstrate the adherence to their European values,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

He said the most important thing in the highly tense situation was the fate of the several thousand helpless migrants. “We are indeed worried over this,” he said.

Russia has dispatched planes to fly over Belarus, in a signal of further support for Minsk. Moscow has also accused the European Union (EU) of trying to “strangle” Belarus by shutting Poland’s border to the migrants.

Lukashenko has said Minsk would not hesitate to invite Russian troops to the country in the event of an extraordinary foreign threat.

Belarus, Poland trade barbs over attempted crossings of asylum seekers

Warsaw claims that Minsk was coordinating the migrant influx, saying the border crisis threatens the security of the entire European Union (EU), but latter rejected the accusations.

Separately on Wednesday, Polish authorities said the migrants who were stuck at the border between Poland and Belarus had made hundreds of attempts to breach the frontier, but had been repelled by 15,000 Polish soldiers deployed to stop them.

According to the Polish border guard, nearly 600 crossing attempts by migrants were recorded on Tuesday, as well as “three large scale” efforts overnight into Wednesday, with more than 100 migrants in each group trying to breach the barbed-wire fence.

Nine people were detained and 48 people were immediately sent back to Belarus, it added.

Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Błaszczak said there were still a substantial group of people on the Belarusian side of the border crossing post of Kuznitsa, which authorities closed on Tuesday.

Błaszczak also said that a makeshift camp of migrants at Kuznitsa had also split off into smaller groups, without giving numbers.

Belarus shares a border with Ukraine in the south. It also borders Poland and Lithuania in the west, Latvia in the north, and Russia in the east.

EU countries bordering Belarus have reported a dramatic increase in the number of irregular migrant crossings since August. According to the latest estimates from last month, over 6,000 migrants tried to enter the bloc via the Belarus-EU border, a sharp rise from last year’s 150.

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