Poland, Belarus trading accusations as illegal crossings soar

May 2, Pozirk. Belarusian and Polish officials have traded accusations as tension between the two countries rises over illegal migration.

Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski on May 1 described Poland and the European Union as victims of hybrid aggression by Alaksandar Łukašenka’s regime, gazeta.pl reported.

Minsk countered by opening criminal cases against unidentified Polish, Latvian and Lithuanian officials.

Illegal border crossing attempts by migrants from Asia and Africa from Belarus into the EU rose by 49 percent to 6,327 in April from March’s level.

Poland was the primary target with 5,460 foiled attempts, 59 percent more than a month earlier. It stopped 363 migrants on April 29 and 30.

Sikorski, in his speech on the 20th anniversary of Poland joining the EU, described migrants as “unfortunate people” invited by the Łukašenka regime and pushed over the border.

Foreigners are transported in government-sponsored buses to border areas, while border guards push them over the Belarusian-Polish border, Sikorski charged.

The EU must not give in to this blackmail, realizing that Łukašenka alone is the source of this problem, he stressed.

Meanwhile, the Belarusian Investigative Committee accused the EU of demonstrating “racial superiority and chauvinism towards refugees.”

“Violence, murder, robbery and torture have become an integral part of the algorithm of passing ‘border controls’ at the frontiers of Lithuania, Latvia and Poland,” it said.

The Investigative Committee has filed charges of war propaganda, crimes against security of humanity, intentional infliction of grievous bodily harm, endangerment and murder against unnamed Latvian, Lithuanian and Polish officials for reportedly mistreating migrants.

“Pseudo-democratic countries” have approved brutality and pushbacks, “ensuring impunity for criminals and legal nihilism at the international level,” it noted.

The alleged victims in the case against Polish authorities are 166 foreigners, who passed through Belarus on their way to the EU. Eleven of them died, while the rest were injured, Belarusian investigators said.

Latvian and Lithuanian officials allegedly perpetrated crimes against 38 and 36 foreigners, respectively.

Sixteen illegal migrants “died at the hands of foreign mercenaries” in Latvia, the Investigative Committee charged, adding that 12 migrants died in Lithuania.

In April, Latvia thwarted 820 attempts, 18 percent more than in March, but Lithuania recorded a 55-percent plunge last month with only 47 attempts.

Lithuanian border guards did not report any illegal border crossings for the last four days of April.

Their Latvian counterparts recorded 71 attempts on Monday and Tuesday.

Since the start of 2024, the EU thwarted at least 11,119 illegal border crossings on its shared border with Belarus, with 9,341 attempts via Poland, 1,595 via Latvia and 183 via Lithuania.

The migration crisis started in spring 2021 after Łukašenka, angered by EU sanctions, had indicated that Minsk would not prevent migrants from Africa and Asia from using Belarus as a route to the EU.

Tension escalated in November 2021, with hundreds of migrants storming the Polish border.

In June 2021, the Belarusian government announced the suspension of a readmission agreement with the EU in response to sanctions that followed the forced landing of a Ryanair flight in Minsk in an operation by Belarusian security forces.

In August 2023, the interior ministers of Poland and the Baltic States warned that they would close the border with Belarus in response to a surge in illegal migration.