This archive report was first published on 17 November 2021.
Belarus-Poland Border Crisis Escalates ¶
BRUZGI, Belarus — The migrant crisis at the Belarus-Poland border has reached a boiling point, with desperate migrants, egged on by Belarusian security officials, clashing with Polish security forces in a bid to breach the border fence.
Rawand Akram, a 23-year-old Kurd from Iraq, was among those who snapped on Tuesday, leading hundreds of migrants in a stampede toward a frontier checkpoint. The melee, which began around noon, spiralled into a dangerous confrontation, with Polish officers responding with volleys from water cannons and blasts of tear gas.
Mr. Akram, who has spent 28 nights in a frozen encampment just yards from Poland, said he was angry and frustrated. 'I am angry. Everyone is angry. This is the last thing we could do. There is no other solution if we ever want to get to Europe,' he said.
Belarusian authorities have denied allegations that they have engineered the crisis and are directing the movement of migrants. However, E.U. officials have called the crisis a 'hybrid war' engineered by Mr. Lukashenko to punish Poland for sheltering some of his most outspoken opponents and pressure the bloc into lifting sanctions on his country.
Poland's tough stance has won strong support from its allies, but it has also come under criticism from humanitarian organizations for a legal amendment that allows migrants to be pushed back at the border and for asylum claims made by those who entered illegally to be ignored.
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov of Russia on Tuesday called Polish forces' treatment of migrants 'absolutely unacceptable.' Mr. Lavrov said that the forces 'violate all conceivable norms of international humanitarian law and other agreements of the international community.'
Belarusian authorities have silenced nearly all independent voices since a contested presidential election last year, but they have become more open to scrutiny at the border than Poland, a democracy with a vibrant media, now blindfolded in the border zone.
On Tuesday, scores of migrants were still staying at the Yubileiny Hotel, operated by the president's property department, but some said they had been forced to check out and feared expulsion.
