There Are No Winners In This Tug-of-War
"Aggressive migrants are throwing stones at our soldiers and police officers.""Our security services are repelling the attack.""[Tear gas had been used to] quell the aggression."Polish Defence Ministry
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| Migrants attempting to cross into Poland from Belarus throw rocks at Polish security forces. (Leonid Shcheflov/BELTA/AFP/Getty Images) |
"We were stopping migrants and drugs — now you will catch them and eat them yourself." (May 2021)"We're not collecting refugees all over the world and bringing them to Belarus, as Poland has informed the European Union. Those who come to Belarus legally, we accept here — the same way any other country would. Those who violate the law, even in the slightest, [we put] on a plane and send back [home]." (November 2021)Belarusian Presuden Alexander Lukashenko"It's very clear that if you see what's been happening to this group of people — that their own specific concerns, their particular dignity and their rights — have not been treated with the respect that they should have.""And that is why we want them to be able to speak for themselves and to be heard. We don't want these people to be instrumentalized and used as pawns in the disputes involving the countries."UN spokesperson Farhan Haq
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| Polish law enforcement officers use water cannons, as migrants carry a log toward a fence, at the Bruzgi-Kuźnica checkpoint on the Belarus-Poland border near Grodno, Belarus, on Tuesday. (Policja Podlaska/Handout/Reuters) |
"[The actions of Polish forces are] absolutely unacceptable.""[Polish forces] violate all conceivable norms of international humanitarian law and other agreements of the international community."Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov
According to Polish authorities, Belarus has been arming migrants with stun grenades for use in attacking Polish border guards.Violent skirmishes marking an escalation of the refugee crisis on the Belarus-Polish border as the migrants attempt to enter the European Union frontier resulted in Polish police officers being injured. One of the officers sustained a skull fracture when a rock was thrown at him.
Migrants were shown hurling missiles at troops in riot gear across the barbed-wire fence that separates Poland from Belarus, through videos posted online. The crowd awaiting entry to Poland was blasted with tear gas by Polish forces, along with water cannons. A loudspeaker warned the crowd, "If you do not follow orders, force may be used against you", as they attempted to break through the fence.
Belarusian state media shared other footage showing Polish water cannons driving up and down targeting camps and migrants as they approached the fence. The Kuznica border crossing is now occupied by hundreds of migrants. Alexander Lukashenko stands accused by Warsaw of transporting migrants to the frontier, dispatching plain-clothes police to give them aid in breaching the border fences.
All of this a revenge tactic by the Belarusian president for the sanctions imposed by the EU following brutal state put-downs of protests by outraged Belarusians at the corruption involved in the wake of the Belarusian election returning Lukashenko to power by a purported popular vote of trust.
Poland's border guard said about 1,000 migrants had gathered in a new camp near the Kuznica crossing Getty Images
A video taken at night, released by Polish authorities, shows a uniformed member of the Belarusian security forces making an attempt to cut a hole in the fence with wire cutters. When a Polish patrol approaches in the dark the figure suddenly disappears into the dark night. Belarusian security forces are shown in previous Polish footage using strobe lights and lasers to dazzle guards' eyes at night while migrants attack the fencing.
For over a week, in the hope of transiting into the EU, some four thousand migrants camped out in sub-zero conditions with scant food or shelter. A Polish government spokesman stated "This conflict could stretch out for months". Although Iraq has urged its citizen-migrants to return home, few are interested in doing so.
None of the migrants want to settle in Belarus or Poland; their goal is to reach wealthy Germany, which absorbed a million refugees in a similar invasion of migrants into Europe in 2015.
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| Belarusian state media said about 1,000 migrants were moved to a temporary shelter Getty Images |
Labels: Belarus, European Union, Migrants, Poland, Stand-off
posted by Pieface @ Thursday, November 18, 2021
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