Border crisis: Baltic countries and Poland blame Belarus | Europe | News and events from across the continent | DW

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The information coming from the border between Poland and Belarus is becoming more and more tragic. Polish television channel TVN reported on Saturday that the body of a young Syrian in his mid-20s was found in the forest near Wolka Terechowska. “The cause of death has not yet been determined,” a newscaster said, citing Polish border guards.

He also reported that around 100 people tried to cross the border at the same place at the same time, but their attempts were stopped. He said Ukrainian and Polish human traffickers who planned to take migrants to Germany had been arrested.

Polish border police daily situation reports have been looking very similar for months. The government deployed additional police and military units and erected a temporary barbed wire fence.

According to Polish sources, some 4,000 people are stranded in the region. They come mainly from Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan and frequently attempt to cross the border.

Polish President Andrzej Duda on Saturday visited the troops stationed at the border and thanked them for their defense of Poland and the EU.

Belarusian leader held responsible

The situation is no different on the Lithuanian-Belarusian border, where Lithuanian border police have recorded hundreds of illegal attempts to enter the country in recent weeks. Since the start of the year, more than 4,000 people have entered Lithuania illegally from Belarus. More than 6,000 have been turned back by border officials.

According to Andrzej Pukszto, a political scientist at the University of Kaunas in Lithuania, there is a broad political consensus between the government and the opposition on the situation, and all politicians hold Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko responsible for the crisis.

However, they disagree on how much help Lithuania should offer those trying to cross the border.

“There are a lot of people in need in Lithuania, people who live below the poverty line or even below,” Pukszto said.

According to official statistics, 20% of the population was in this situation in 2020.

“This is why there is a heated debate on the number of migrants and refugees that the country can accommodate”, he explained, insisting on the other hand that there had not been major protests against refugees in Lithuania.

‘Cursed difficult’

Juris Rozenvalds, a sociologist at the University of Latvia in Riga, said that there was a similar consensus regarding migration in Latvia, stressing Parliament’s unanimous support for the decision to impose a state of emergency on the border with Belarus in August.

He said that until mid-summer, at least 400 refugees who had crossed the border had been accepted. “In recent months, 60 people, mostly women and children, have been accepted for humanitarian reasons.

Latvian politician Boris Tsilevich, who is chairman of the Committee on the Election of Judges to the European Court of Human Rights, explained that the government had a difficult balance to strike: it had to prevent illegal attempts enter the country and at the same time fulfill its international human rights obligations. It was “pretty darn hard,” he said.

Thousands of people are trapped on the border between Belarus and Poland

Heated debate in Poland

In Poland, the political debate is much more heated than in Lithuania and Latvia. All parties agree that Lukashenko is to blame, but they disagree on the approach to be taken. Many opposition politicians do not understand the government’s refusal to accept European Union help to secure the borders.

Leader of the ruling PiS, Law and Justice party Jaroslaw Kaczynski seeks support elsewhere: he invited former Italian interior minister and populist leader Lega Nord Matteo Salvini and other far-right politicians to talks in Warsaw in December on “defending Europe’s borders.”

While it’s hard to say what will happen, what is certain is that the state of emergency in Poland is due to end on December 2 and cannot be extended for constitutional reasons. Will martial law be imposed instead? Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said no.

Parliament has approved the construction of a five-meter-high wall on the border with Belarus, but it is not expected to be erected until spring.

This article was originally written in German.

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