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Belarus vandalises another Polish cemetery: Foreign Ministry

25.08.2022 20:05
Belarus officials are destroying a Polish military cemetery in the northwestern Belarusian village of Surkonty, the spokesman for Poland’s Foreign Ministry said on Thursday, adding that the Lukashenko regime “will pay for these acts of barbarism.”
Belarusian officials are destroying a Polish military cemetery in the western village of Surkonty, the spokesman for Polands Foreign Ministry Łukasz Jasina said on Thursday, adding that the Lukashenko regime will pay for these acts of barbarism.
Belarusian officials are destroying a Polish military cemetery in the western village of Surkonty, the spokesman for Poland’s Foreign Ministry Łukasz Jasina said on Thursday, adding that the Lukashenko regime “will pay for these acts of barbarism.”PAP/Albert Zawada

Łukasz Jasina made the statement on Twitter, Polish state news agency PAP reported.     

The vandalisation of the Surkonty cemetery, which houses the graves of Polish World War II Home Army (AK) soldiers, was reported earlier in the day by the Belarusian independent journalist Tadeusz Giczan. 

Giczan noted that Belarus was using heavy equipment to demolish the burial site, the PAP news agency reported.

Meanwhile, glosznadniemna.pl, a Polish website in Belarus, called the operation an act of “bestiality unimaginable in the 21st century.”

The spokesman for the Polish Foreign Ministry said in a tweet: “The Home Army soldiers' cemetery in Surkonty is devastated by the people of the Minsk regime.”

Jasina added: “Those who think that the  memory of heroes can be eradicated are very wrong. The regime will pay for these acts of barbarism.”

Acts of vandalism against Polish burial sites in Belarus

The destruction of the Surkonty cemetery is the latest act of vandalism against Belarus-based burial sites of the soldiers of AK, Poland’s famous resistance movement during World War II. 

In early July, graves of AK soldiers were “razed to the ground” in the Western Belarusian village of Mikulishki, glosznadniemna.pl reported at the time.

Poland’s Foreign Ministry condemned the vandalism as “an act of bestiality.” Belarus’ charge d’affaires was summoned and presented with an emphatic protest, the PAP news agency reported.

The government in Minsk, meanwhile, said that there were “no registered burial sites” in Mikulishki. 

Poland said Belarus was “spreading disinformation.”

Later that month, glosznadniemna.pl reported that Belarusian officials had demolished a monument at a collective grave of AK soldiers in another Western Belarusian village, Striovka. 

According to independent news outlets in Belarus, other Polish memorial sites have also been recently vandalised, the PAP news agency reported.

(pm)

Source: PAPglosznadniemna.pl