Polish police detained 300 human traffickers

Since August, Polish police detained over 300 human traffickers, smuggling migrants from Belarus to western Europe, amid an ongoing migrant crisis.

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The police said in a twitter post that traffickers were detained and the cars, used for smuggling were seized.

According to the police, the smugglers were being paid for illegal transportation of migrants lured by Minsk from war-torn and impoverished countries to Poland's eastern border.

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

Lukashenko has denied luring vulnerable people, including Kurds from the Middle East, with the false promise of easy access to the EU and sending them across the bloc's border.

Polish lawmakers on Wednesday backed a government plan to strengthen the country's borders amid the migrant crisis on its frontier with Belarus.

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Source: PAP