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POZIRK+Poland, Latvia see sharp rise in illegal entries compared with early October 2024
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Polish soldier hospitalized after knife attack at Belarus’ border
May 28, Pozirk. A Polish soldier has been hospitalized after being attacked with a knife by a foreigner who tried to cross into Poland from Belarus on Tuesday, the Polish Border Guard reports.
The attacker was attempting an illegal border crossing with a large group of third-country foreigners, who behaved aggressively, repeatedly attacking the wounded man and a female border guard who was providing first aid, the report said.
Border guards used vehicles to protect both.
The wound is serious but not life-threatening, Polish Deputy Interior Minister Czesław Mroczek told Polskie Radio later.
He accused Belarusian authorities of facilitating illegal migration, noting the aggressive behavior of migrants and rising numbers of illegal border crossings.
A few hours before the attack, a Polish border guard was reportedly hit with a broken bottle, suffered facial injuries and was also hospitalized.
Another migrant used a stick with an attached knife to attack the guard, who also needed medical assistance.
Since the start of 2024, the EU thwarted at least 17,800 illegal border crossings at its shared border with Belarus, including about 15,500 attempts via Poland.
Illegal border crossings picked up pace in February and keep reaching record highs in May, Pozirk’s analysis of daily stats shows.
The migration crisis at the Belarusian-EU border started in spring 2021 after Alaksandar 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. It 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.
The Baltic states and Poland accused Belarusian authorities of creating the trouble, while the latter blamed it on the West.
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.
