What’s happening at the border?
More than 1,000 people, many fleeing dangerous conditions in Middle Eastern countries, arrived en masse at Poland’s border with Belarus this week, in a dramatic escalation of a simmering migration crisis on the edge of the EU. They had been escorted to the border by Belarusian authorities.
Clashes erupted with Polish police in riot gear. Some in the crowd tried to enter Poland by cutting a border fence or battering it with logs. Police deployed chemical sprays to push people back.
In the evening the group set up tents and lit campfires metres from the Polish border. Many are women and young children and conditions are extremely dangerous, with temperatures dipping below freezing overnight.
Thousands of others were already spread out across the border region in much smaller groups, playing a cat and mouse game with Polish border officials. At least eight people have died of exposure in the area over the past two months.
Polish officials have vowed to prevent anyone from crossing the border. Many of those trying to enter Poland want to travel on to Germany.
Why is this happening and how has Poland reacted?
Poland, the EU, Nato and others all blame Belarus for intentionally sparking the crisis by allowing people who want to come to the EU from the Middle East and Africa to travel to Minsk, then providing them with transport to the Polish border.
Migrants gather on the Belarusian-Polish border. Photograph: BelTA/Reuters
European leaders say Belarus’s president, Alexander Lukashenko, is motivated by revenge for sanctions and criticism of his brutal crackdown on the Belarusian opposition. Other observers think he wants to extract concessions from the EU and others.
Polish authorities have responded harshly to the arrival of migrants, imposing a state of emergency that prevents aid from reaching those trapped in the border area. Newly passed laws have allowed police to ignore asylum requests and summarily expel the migrants back into Belarus. The government has also approved a new, Donald Trump-style border wall to keep them out of the country. According to the government, nearly 30,000 attempted border crossings have taken place this year, including 17,000 in October.
Border mapWhere are the refugees from?
Many of those in the border encampment that was set up on Monday are Iraqi Kurds who who started their journey from Minsk on Sunday evening. Flights from Iraqi Kurdistan have been an important conduit for smugglers to bring people from various Middle Eastern countries to Belarus. Nationals from Syria and Afghanistan, as well as African countries like Cameroon and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, have also taken the “Belarus route” to Europe rather than attempting dangerous sea crossings from Turkey or north Africa.
What is the international community doing?
International and local NGOs have called for Poland to allow access to the border region to provide supplies and medical aid in order to prevent a humanitarian crisis. The government’s state of emergency keeps both aid organisations and journalists out of certain areas.
Western countries have increased pressure on Minsk. The EU commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, has pledged greater support for Poland, Lithuania and Latvia to police the border. She said the EU would explore “how to sanction, including through blacklisting, third-country airlines that are active in human trafficking”.
What might happen next?
Poland has adopted a hardline response and its leaders look unlikely to admit thousands of asylum-seekers from the Middle East, even if most are keen to travel on to Germany. And the EU appears to be balancing its humanitarian values against its political considerations, including a difficult relationship with Poland.
Meanwhile, temperatures in the forested no man’s land between Belarus and Poland are falling and becoming more dangerous every day. And hundreds more desperate people are arriving in Minsk every week. The crisis seems unlikely to end soon.
