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Migrants in further attempts to cross into Poland from Belarus: officials

29.11.2021 12:45
A group of more than 30 migrants has been detained by Polish border guards after attempting to cross illegally into the country from Belarus "with the help of people in uniforms," Polish officials said on Monday.
Anna Michalska, spokeswoman for Polands Border Guard force.
Anna Michalska, spokeswoman for Poland's Border Guard force.Photo: PAP/Radek Pietruszka

Anna Michalska, a spokeswoman for Poland's Border Guard force, told the media that this latest attempt to breach the border happened at around 6 p.m. on Sunday near the village of Mielniki.

"As the migrants tried to force their way across the border, they were being helped by around 10 uniformed persons, who were throwing rocks at Polish officials," Michalska said.

"We saw that some 20 Belarusian troops were deployed in the area," all of them "equipped with helmets and shields," she added.

No one was hurt on either side during the attempt to cross the border, she also told reporters.

Meanwhile, Poland's defence ministry tweeted that 33 people were detained after crossing the border near Mielniki, all of them Iraqi citizens.

They were subsequently sent back to the frontier, Polish officials said, as quoted by the state PAP news agency.

Border tensions

Poland's Border Guard said it had thwarted a total of 92 illegal attempts to cross from Belarus over the past 24 hours.

Since the start of the year, there have been over 37,000 illegal crossing attempts from Belarus, including more than 8,000 in November alone, the border agency's data showed.

Since September 2, Poland has kept the border zone under a state of emergency amid continuing migrant pressure. It is also set to build a 5.5-metre-high, 180-kilometre-long protective wall along the frontier.

The months-long migrant crisis on the Polish-Belarusian border has escalated in recent weeks, with Poland, the European Union and its member states, as well as NATO and the United States accusing Belarus' strongman leader Alexander Lukashenko of orchestrating the standoff in retaliation for Western sanctions against his regime.

(pm/gs)

Source: IAR, PAP, TVP Info