Belarus conflict: Merkel makes promises to Lithuania - Juso boss now wants to take in refugees

Many refugees have one goal in mind: Germany.

The situation on the Belarus-Poland border remains dire.

The news ticker.

• Numerous refugees have been waiting for weeks at the Belarusian-Polish * border - many have a clear destination in mind.

• A group of around 500 people apparently from the Belarusian side threw stones at Polish officials and sprayed tear gas.

• Meanwhile, child and human rights organizations appeal to the EU Commission to protect the rights of migrants.

• This news ticker is continuously updated.

Update from November 19, 8.45 p.m.:

In Lithuania, the military has set up a base near the EU's eastern external border with Belarus. The additional soldiers with whom the army supports the border protection of the Baltic EU country are housed on the operational base. The armed forces announced this on Friday. The so-called Forward Operating Base was set up in an industrial area in the town of Druskininkai near the border triangle with Belarus and Poland.

Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) assured Lithuania "full German solidarity". Merkel and Lithuania's President Gitanas Nauseda held a phone call on Friday about the “worrying situation on the border between Belarus and the European Union,” said government spokesman Steffen Seibert. Lithuania is particularly affected by the situation due to its location on the EU's external border.

Meanwhile, Juso federal chairwoman Jessica Rosenthal campaigned for refugees stranded in Belarus to be accepted into the EU.

"But before at the border children die, we must be ready to receive people and to provide," said the chairman of the SPD youth organization the

, according to a preliminary report on Friday.

“If, above all, it is not proven to my generation that the EU is capable of acting, we are endangering the European project.” It should “not happen that people are turned into weapons”.

That also applies to the EU. 

Belarus: Refugees have to leave the border crossing - and now get Chinese vaccine

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© Ulf Mauder

First report:

Warsaw / Minsk - The situation on the Belarusian-Polish border remains dramatic. Thousands of refugees from the Middle East, including many Kurds from northern Iraq, have been stuck at the EU's external border for weeks. And that in icy temperatures. Many of them have one goal in mind: the Federal Republic. Calls like “Germany, Germany” and “Merkel, Merkel” are repeatedly heard from the crowd in the Brusgi migrant camp. A dpa correspondent reports that Chancellor Angela Merkel * has been telephoning the Belarusian ruler Alexander Lukashenko and the Polish government for days.

Polish border guards arrested 45 other migrants on the border with Belarus. A spokeswoman for the authority said on Friday that they tried to cross the border on Thursday evening. According to the report, a group of around 500 people from the Belarusian side threw stones at Polish officials and sprayed tear gas. At the same time, "Belarusian officials" tried to blind their Polish colleagues with lasers. "The Belarusian side is supplying the migrants with tear gas," said the spokeswoman. Four Polish soldiers were injured, but did not have to be hospitalized. According to the spokeswoman, the arrested have been asked to "leave Poland".

The Belarusian ruler Alexander Lukashenko has meanwhile spoken to Russia's head of state Vladimir Putin again.

It was also about Lukashenko's phone call with Chancellor Angela Merkel.

The Kremlin announced this in Moscow on Friday.

The CDU politician spoke to Lukashenko twice this week in order to urge a better humanitarian situation for migrants on the Belarusian-Polish border.

Belarus: Refugees have to leave the border crossing - Pro Asyl takes traffic lights into prayer

During his visit to Warsaw on Thursday, the German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer (CSU) defended the Polish side: "What Poland is doing in this migration crisis is right and legitimate." According to the Interfax agency, Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskow made it clear, that Putin's * talks with Lukashenko were not enough to “find a solution to this crisis”. It is important to continue contacts between Lukashenko and EU representatives. No solution has yet been found.

Children's and human rights organizations have meanwhile appealed to the EU Commission * to protect the rights of migrants.

The people in the border area with Belarus must be evacuated immediately and given access to a constitutional asylum procedure, said 27 organizations, according to a message from Pro Asyl on Friday in Berlin on the occasion of International Children's Rights Day on November 20.

They also called for immediate access to the border area for humanitarian organizations in order to be able to care for the people in need.

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Migrants are housed in the emergency shelter in the warehouse of a logistics center near the border with Poland.

© Ulf Mauder / dpa

Pro-Aysl managing director Günter Burkhardt also criticized the role of the possible future federal government made up of the SPD, Greens and FDP in the conflict.

"The current political vacuum in Germany must not be at the expense of those seeking protection," he said.

"We are watching the leading figures of the traffic light parties disappearing." The signatories of the appeal include the German representatives of Amnesty International, Doctors Without Borders, Bread for the World, Diakonie, Save the Children and SOS Children's Villages.

Belarus-Poland border: Refugees housed in logistics center - Corona vaccinations planned

The makeshift camp of migrants along the Belarusian-Polish border at the Kuznica-Brusgi crossing has meanwhile been evacuated, according to the border guards in Belarus. Migrants would no longer be admitted to the green strip along the Polish border fortifications, said a spokeswoman for the German press agency on Friday. The people are now housed in a logistics center nearby. After a first Covid * case was reported in the emergency accommodation the day before, a vaccination center is scheduled to start operating there on Friday. The administration of a Chinese vaccine is planned.

In the morning, state-affiliated Belarusian media again published videos from the logistics hall, which now houses almost all the people who had previously camped in the forest.

In the emergency shelter, adults and children were huddled on mattresses on the floor.

Accordingly, food was distributed in front of the building.

Because so many soaked and freezing people sought refuge there, a second floor was also made available for the migrants.

List of rubric lists: © John MacDoughall / AFP