On the one hand, thousands of migrants, starving and fighting against the cold.
On the other side, nearly 15,000 members of the police (military and border guards).
And in the middle, barbed wire.
The crisis on the border between Belarus and Poland, which has intensified for several days, was shaken on Monday by a large-scale announcement.
Poland will begin, by the end of the year, the construction of a wall along the border with Belarus, the Interior Ministry said in a statement.
What is the situation at the border?
Thousands of migrants, most of them from the Middle East, have been camping for several days in freezing temperatures. On the border between Poland and Belarus, more than 2,000 people are notably gathered in front of the Brouzgui border post (about ten kilometers from Kuznica). That night, they would have succeeded in destroying part of the barbed wire fence.
In Poland, security forces in the village of Kuznica (East) fired tear gas at migrants throwing stones along the border with Belarus, the Polish Defense Ministry said on Tuesday. “Kuznica: migrants attacked our soldiers and officers with stones and are trying to destroy the fence and cross into Poland,” the ministry tweeted. "Our forces used tear gas to quell the aggression against the migrants." Poland then announced that one of its police officers was seriously injured, presumably the victim of a fractured skull, in the clashes.
The European Union (EU) accuses Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko of having organized these migratory movements by issuing visas and chartering flights, for purposes of destabilization.
The country in the eastern part of the European continent is reportedly seeking revenge for Western sanctions imposed on the regime last year after the brutal crackdown on opponents.
As a result, Poland dispatched thousands of troops to the border area where it declared a state of emergency, while hastily erecting a fence of sharp barbed wire.
What type of wall?
"The business that we must carry out is an absolutely strategic and priority investment for the security of the nation and its citizens," said Minister of the Interior Mariusz Kaminski. The ministry stressed that the corresponding contracts will be signed by December 15 and that work will start later this November. The work will be carried out simultaneously by different companies on four sections, 24 hours a day (and with workers) in three shifts, ”the Minister said on Twitter. The goal is to complete this wall by the end of the first half of 2022.
Budowa zapory na granicy rozpocznie się jeszcze w tym roku.
Prace będą prowadzone równolegle przez różne firmy na czterech odcinkach, 24 godziny na dobę w trybie trzyzmianowym.
To główne rekomendacje po dzisiejszym posiedzeniu zespołu międzyresortowego ds.
budowy zapory.
- Mariusz Kamiński (@Kaminski_M_) November 15, 2021
The structure will cost around 353 million euros and is expected to extend over 180 km, or about half the total length of the border between Poland and Belarus.
It is expected to be over five meters tall and equipped with motion detectors and day and night vision cameras.
The Polish government is also planning to set up 750 border guard posts.
In the Lublin region, "we have a natural barrier in the form of the Bug River, and we will secure our border there in a different way," announces the government.
What reactions?
In an interview with the Polish press agency PAP, Morawiecki also estimated that “the whole (European) community should contribute” to the construction of a wall on the Polish-Belarusian border.
What Ursula von der Leyen had rigorously refused.
"There will be no funding for barbed wire and walls," said the head of the European executive at the end of October.
A wall which is, for the liberal and left opposition, "representative of the militarized approach to these tensions", according to Dorota Dakowska, professor of political science at Sciences-po Aix.
This expert from Poland recalls that "three quarters of the inhabitants are against the reception of migrants but do not welcome the announcement of this wall either".
And her colleague, Amélie Zima, doctor of political science from the University of Paris-Nanterre, to join her.
“We see residents mobilizing for migrants.
They don't all see the wall as a solution.
This is not what worries them all.
Those who do not support the government are asking for a European intervention from Frontex and above all to give journalists access ”.
Opposite, Belarusian leader Lukashenko criticized this announcement.
“They threaten us with new sanctions, to build a wall five meters high.
If they have nothing else to do, let them do it, we have nothing against, ”he quipped.
Read alsoMigrants at the Polish border: 5 minutes to understand the worsening crisis between the EU and Belarus
In France, the government's position vis-à-vis this construction of this wall does not seem a little vague.
Asked whether Paris supported this construction, Gabriel Attal indicated, this Tuesday morning on France Inter, that "France what it says, Europe what it says, is that we must enforce our borders.
What she says is that she is in solidarity with the countries confronted with this migratory situation.
At the same time, Clément Beaune, Secretary of State for European Affairs, said he was opposed to the construction of this wall.
“I am for a Europe which has no naivety and which holds its borders and I plead so that in Poland, we deploy the border police to help.
(…) I am not for a Europe which bristles with barbed wire or is covered with walls ”, he pleaded, on France 2.
