Alexander Lukashenko's Belarusian regime uses migrants in retaliation for EU sanctions. A "hybrid" war that risks causing an escalation with unpredictable outcomes.
An already very tense situation that has worsened after the images of hundreds of refugees marching towards the Polish border have circulated. Warsaw rejected them and said it was ready to defend its borders.
Poland recorded over 23,000 illegal migrant arrivals from the east this year, almost half of which in October, a sign that Belarus is increasing pressure on Europe. But never before has such a planned exodus been seen: the Minsk media showed a column of around 500 refugees, escorted by Belarusian border guards, along a highway from the border town of Bruzgi and towards a forest. which runs along the Polish region of Podlaskie. Most from the Middle East, with families and children, chanting "We want to go to Germany".
A similar scene was seen only at the Greek-Macedonian border, at the height of the migratory crisis in 2016. Arriving at the Polish border, some of the migrants tried to cross but an impressive array of Polish police was waiting for them.
The Warsaw authorities rejected the attempted entry and accused Minsk of wanting to cause a "serious accident". "We are ready to defend the border," Defense Minister Mariausz Blaszczak said clearly. There are 12 thousand soldiers deployed in the area.
Minsk for its part denies a direction of this migratory wave and accuses Warsaw of "an inhuman attitude".
Brussels hesitates. On the one hand, he has never digested Warsaw's intransigence and rejected the request to bear the costs of a border wall, but at the same time he is aware that we must face a common front against Minsk which - accuses a spokesman for the EU Commission - is setting up a "desperate attempt to exploit people to destabilize the EU and the values we support".
In the evening, Von der Leyen appealed to member states to "extend the sanctions regime against the Belarusian regime responsible for these hybrid attacks".
In this escalation, it is mainly migrants who pay. Briefly rejected by the Polish police (and by groups of young nationalists who patrol the border "in defense of the Slavic identity"), while the Belarusian border guards refuse to let them go back. The result is hundreds of people trapped in a no man's land, amidst inhospitable forests and sub-zero temperatures.
(Unioneonline / L)
