Poland has completed the construction of a steel wall on the border with Belarus

The steel wall built by Poland along its border with Belarus is complete.

Since last summer, thousands of refugees, mainly from the Middle East, have flocked there with varying degrees of success.

The West has accused the Belarusian regime of orchestrating this influx with its Russian ally, as part of a “hybrid” attack, which Minsk denies.

In response, Poland has set up a no-go area along this border for non-residents, including aid workers and the media.

It dispatched thousands of soldiers and police there, launched the construction of the barrier and approved a law authorizing the refoulement of migrants to Belarus, a practice condemned by international organizations and justice.

“The barrier we have built separates us from the dark dictatorship of (Belarusian leader Alexander) Lukashenko,” Polish Interior Minister Mariusz Kaminski welcomed to the press.

Belarus "shares responsibility for Russia's aggression against Ukraine", he insisted, speaking in front of the barrier, in the border town of Kuznica.

Read alsoMigrants at the Polish border: an “intolerable situation”, according to the UN

The barrier, 5.5 meters high, stretches over 186 kilometers, and its cost is estimated at 350 million euros.

At least a dozen people have died on this border where, during the winter, migrants and refugees, many of whom were fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East, faced grueling and freezing conditions.

A judgment from the European Court of Human Rights

On Thursday, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) condemned Poland in two separate cases of refoulement of Chechen asylum seekers at the border with Belarus.

The Court notably ruled in favor of a family of seven Russians originally from Chechnya, including four minor children, who had presented themselves 16 times at the border between Belarus and Poland.

Read alsoMigrants trapped at the Polish border: “They told us either you die here or in Poland”

Polish border guards refused their asylum requests and sent them back to Belarus "with the risk of deportation and ill-treatment in Chechnya", writes the ECHR.

The applicants had highlighted the “degrading” nature of the treatment inflicted by the Polish authorities and recalled the prohibition of collective expulsions of foreigners, enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights.

Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Poland has on the other hand largely opened its borders to Ukrainian refugees.