Polish soldiers discovered the body of a man near a Nigerian backpack and passport in a forest near the border with Belarus, police said on Wednesday (December 8th).
A dozen migrants have already been found dead since the summer along this border, according to Polish media.
The crisis intensified last month with a surge in arrivals of migrants, notably from countries in the Middle East and Africa, trying to cross the border.
Read alsoMigration crisis: Poland wants to erect a 180 km fence in 180 days
Charities have warned that the toll could be higher, stressing that the freezing temperatures that currently reign make the crossings particularly dangerous.
"
The body was found yesterday in a forest near Olchowka in Narewka commune
," local police tweeted.
Instrumentalisation of migrants by Minsk
Border guards said for their part that a group of 35 migrants had managed with the help of Belarusian soldiers to clear a passage to cross the border overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday.
All members of the group were arrested and sent back across the border, they said.
The European Union, the United States and Canada announced last week new economic sanctions, denounced by Moscow, against the regime of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. Western countries accuse Belarus of orchestrating the influx to the borders of Poland, Lithuania and Latvia of thousands of migrants in revenge for previous sanctions imposed to punish the brutal repression of a protest movement against the regime of Alexander Lukashenko in 2020.
Warsaw accused Belarusian authorities of bringing these migrants to its border and instigating them to force the barbed wire fence, sometimes providing them with tools to do so.
Minsk rejected these accusations and blamed Warsaw for violently turning back migrants who managed to cross the border.
