‘They will not come in’: Mounting standoff over migrants on Poland and Belarus border

BERLIN — Polish authorities connected Monday vowed to artifact the introduction of hundreds of migrants amassed connected its borderline with Belarus, wherever the authorities has been accused of weaponizing refugees against the European Union.

The Polish Ministry of Defense posted an aerial video of a ample radical of radical gathered adjacent to the borderline obstruction adjacent the Polish colony of Kuźnica, with Polish guards lined up to look them connected the different side.

“They volition not travel in,” Maciej Wąsik, Poland’s lawman interior curate wrote connected Twitter, adding said the Polish borderline guard, constabulary and service were acceptable to propulsion them back. “Poland’s authorities services are prepared for each circumstances,” helium said.

As the melodramatic country unfolded, Lithuania, which besides has a frontier nearby, moved troops to its border, according to Reuters, citing the country’s Interior Minister Agne Bilotiate.

Earlier videos had showed the ample columns of migrants carrying suitcases and belongings, walking on a road bare of traffic, escorted by equipped Belarusian servicemen.

The European Union has blamed Belarusian authorities for creating a migrant situation arsenic a instrumentality to amp up unit connected Europe. Angered by E.U. sanctions, President Alexander Lukashenk warned successful precocious June that Belarus would nary longer forestall asylum seekers, drugs and adjacent atomic materials from entering the European Union.

The Belarusian State Border Committee blamed Poland for Monday’s incident, claiming that “the indifference and inhuman cognition of the Polish authorities prompted the refugees to instrumentality specified a measurement of despair.” Belarusian borderline guards told state-owned Russian quality bureau RIA Novosti that astir 3,000 radical were moving toward the border, including women and children.

Humanitarian groups accidental that unsuspecting, susceptible refugees and migrants caught successful the mediate are astatine utmost risk, arsenic they are ping-ponged betwixt the borders with temperatures dropping. The initially tiny fig of crossings has grown successful caller weeks.

“More and much radical are coming,” said Kalina Czwarnog, a coordinator with Fundacja Ocalenie, which tries to supply humanitarian assistance to those who person crossed. She said their conditions varied. “Sometimes radical are successful a authorities of hypothermia and they truly can’t locomotion again and sometimes radical are successful bully shape,” she said, adding she was acrophobic determination could beryllium unit astatine the borderline arsenic neo-Fascist groups person besides mobilized to “help” the borderline guards.

“This borderline is sacred,” Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, said connected Monday. “The borderline of the Polish authorities is not conscionable a enactment connected the map. Generations of Poles shed their humor for this border.”

He said that each parties should beryllium connected the broadside of the borderline guards successful the look of the “threat.”

Independent Belarusian media outlet Nexta reported that the migrants were blocked from reaching the Belarus borderline checkpoint and were funneled by Belarusian information forces into a wood adjacent to the border.

Other autarkic Belarusian media posted video of respective 100 migrants successful a wood adjacent to the barbed ligament borderline fence. Some were lasting adjacent to the fence, incapable to proceed. Others, including women and children were seated connected the grass.

Franak Viačorka, an advisor to Belarusian absorption leader, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, tweeted that the migrant situation was “true state-backed smuggling,” organized by Lukashenko.

Earlier successful the summer, refugees had mostly been directed toward Lithuania, wherever officials accused Lukashenko of weaponizing refugees successful a “hybrid attack,” and erected barbed ligament fencing to forestall migrants from entering from Belarus.

At the European Union acme past month, outgoing German Chancellor Angela Merkel threatened further economical sanctions against Belarus to convey condemnation of what she described arsenic a “form of quality trafficking — it indispensable beryllium said — by the state.”

In September Polish President Andrzej Duda declared a state of exigency covering 183 towns and villages successful 2 provinces neighboring Belarus, the archetypal clip specified powers person been utilized since the autumn of Communism.

Russian authorities praised Belarusian for handling the situation “in a ineligible way.” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov determination was nary uncertainty that Belarusian authorities were “taking each indispensable measures to guarantee the information of some Russia and Belarus successful transportation with the concern with migrants connected the Polish-Belarusian border.”

Dixon reported from Moscow. Darius Kalan successful Warsaw contributed.