On the border with Poland, groups of hundreds if not thousands of warmly dressed migrants from Belarus crowd against a high border fence bristling with barbed wire and sometimes destroyed.
In front of them, on the Polish side, soldiers, border guards and riot police face each other to prevent them from clearing their way.
Since Monday, November 8, the Polish authorities have denounced a massive arrival of migrants heading for the Kuznica border crossing, at the gateway to the European Union.
Government spokesman Piotr Müller denounces an operation organized "by people linked to Belarusian special services" to put pressure on the EU, in response to sanctions imposed by Brussels following a brutal crackdown on his regime against the opposition.
Grupa migrantów znajduje się obecnie w okolicach Kuźnicy pic.twitter.com/w5VxXp9QqQ
- Ministerstwo Obrony Narodowej 🇵🇱 (@MON_GOV_PL) November 8, 2021
Where do these migrants come from?
These people stranded on the border between Belarus and Poland come mainly from the Middle East, and more precisely from Afghanistan and Iraq, where the main migratory route "was closed this summer", but where "other routes were opened ”more recently, as the European Union's head of diplomacy, Josep Borell, warned in mid-October.
For their part, the Belarusian authorities confirmed in a statement Monday that "a large group of refugees with personal effects is moving along the highway towards the border with Poland".
Neighboring Poland, Germany has seen a sharp increase in the number of migrants from Belarus.
In October alone, they numbered nearly 5,000, according to German authorities.
Berlin responded by tightening border controls and deploying additional police.
According to the Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza, at least ten migrants have died so far in the region, on the Polish side of the border.
Why is Belarus accused of being at the origin of this migratory wave?
The EU accuses Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko - who denies it - of orchestrating the arrival of a wave of migrants and refugees, in response to sanctions imposed by Brussels following a very brutal crackdown on his regime against the opposition and his rigged re-election in August 2020.
From June 2020, the EU began to ban its airspace to all Belarusian aircraft and froze a number of investments worth 3 billion euros.
Read also Plane hijacked in Belarus: who is Lukashenko, the all-powerful president of the country?
The European diplomat Josep Borell indicated that “the migrants are provided with visas, plane tickets, and that a device is ready to transport them to Minsk, from where they are routed to the borders of Lithuania , Latvia and Poland ”, such as at the Kuznica border post.
“Migrants are pushed to the border by armed men.
Lukashenko is fully responsible for the hybrid attack against Poland, Lithuania and the European Union ”, denounced the Belarusian opposition leader, Svetlana Tsikhanovskaya.
Read alsoFive infographics to understand Lukashenko's Belarus
“President Lukashenko, and by extension Russian President Vladimir Putin, who assiduously supports him, has specially chartered planes to bring in migrants from the Middle East and destabilize the European Union, for whom the absence of a solid policy of “asylum and immigration is a real Achilles heel,” explains François Gémenne, a researcher specializing in migratory flows.
"They are using human beings to whom they promise migration to Europe to raise extremism and nationalism within the Union", he still judges.
What response from the European Union?
The European Union on Tuesday suspended provisions aimed at facilitating the issuance of visas for officials of the Belarusian regime, a decision which endorses a proposal submitted by the European Commission at the end of September.
"The instrumentalization of migrants for political purposes is unacceptable", denounced the President of the European Commission, Ursula Von der Leyen, in a press release published on Monday evening, which also calls for the approval of new sanctions against the Belarusian authorities. and “third country airlines” which play the game of smugglers and transport migrants to Belarus.
The Vice-President of the European Commission, Margaritis Schinas, will visit “in the coming days to the main countries of origin and transit to ensure that they act to prevent their own nationals from falling into the trap set by Belarusian authorities, ”the statement said.
A government crisis cell was opened in Warsaw where Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, and interior and defense ministers met at midday on Monday to discuss the situation.
"We fear that there may not be an escalation of this type of action at the Polish border in the near future and of an armed nature," Piotr Muller, spokesperson for the Polish government, told the press.
What will become of the migrants?
“Given that Poland does not wish to welcome them, it is unfortunately very likely that these people will be sent back to Belarus,” explains François Gémenne.
However, "no one knows what will happen to them in the country", worries the specialist, for whom the European Union must imperatively "find a solution of reception for these migrants", "to put pressure near Vladimir Poutine ”and adopt a real migration policy to prevent each new migratory movement in Europe from becoming a crisis like this one.
