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Belarus: Migrants allegedly "voluntarily" evacuate camps on border with Poland

2021-11-19T02:45:32.840Z


Hundreds of people have been camping on the border with Poland in bad weather for weeks - to get into the EU. Now they have been housed in a warehouse by Belarusian security forces.


Enlarge image

Remainder of a provisional warehouse (symbolic image)

Photo: Leonid Shcheglov / AP

In Belarus, according to the border guards, hundreds of migrants have left a makeshift camp on the border with Poland.

On Thursday, all refugees from the camp near the Bruzgi border crossing were brought "on a voluntary basis" to a nearby logistics center, the Belarusian border guard said on the Telegram messenger service.

The authorities also published photos of the apparently abandoned camp, in which around 2,000 people had been waiting for the past few days.

On Tuesday evening, more than a thousand people had already been brought from the camp to a huge warehouse.

However, according to the Belarusian authorities, around 800 more slept in tents or around campfires in the open air at temperatures below zero.

These migrants have now also been brought to the warehouse because of "worsening weather conditions", as the border guard announced.

There they receive warm food and warm clothing.

The provisional camp was located in a wooded area not far from the Bruzgi border crossing.

On Tuesday, Polish security forces used tear gas and water cannons against the people there.

The Polish border guards have now confirmed the evacuation of the camp.

Photos show abandoned tents, rubbish and some campfire sites that are still smoking.

On the EU's external border with Belarus, especially on the border with Poland, thousands of refugees from the Middle East, including many Kurds from northern Iraq, have been stuck in icy temperatures for weeks.

The EU accuses the Belarusian ruler, Alexander Lukashenko, of deliberately smuggling refugees into the border area with the EU and using them as leverage.

Poland has gathered more than 15,000 security guards at the heavily secured border.

Seehofer denies German promise

It is still unclear what will happen to the people who are currently holding out on the Belarusian side near the border.

A spokeswoman for President Lukashenko said on Thursday that Germany had agreed to accept around 2,000 migrants.

However, the acting Federal Minister of the Interior, Horst Seehofer, contradicted this representation.

According to the CSU politician, there is no such agreement.

"This report is wrong," said the Seehofer in Warsaw after a meeting with Poland's Interior Minister Mariusz Kaminski.

Hybrid threat situations are always used to spread false information to the public.

He immediately contacted the executive chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) and received the information that the statement from Minsk was incorrect.

Unlike the refugees, Seehofer assured the Poles of German support.

"Germany is firmly on the side of Poland," he said, according to his spokesman.

jok / AFP

Source: spiegel

All news articles on 2021-11-19

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