The situation on the border between Poland and Belarus remains tense. Since July, the number of illegal migrants (mainly young men from the Middle East) has been on the rise on the Belarusian side of the border which is also the external border of the European Union and NATO. 

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The crisis escalated dramatically on the 8th of November when a group of several dozen migrants tried to forcefully enter Polish soil while using sharp tools to break the temporary fence. The next day, Polish PM Mateusz Morawiecki gave a speech in the Polish parliament in order to denounce “the biggest provocation of the last decades”. 

„We are facing a war of a new type (…) This is a plan scrupulously directed by Minsk and Moscow. (…) This crisis is orchestrated and organized with scrutiny as it was the case in 2015 (…) These people are brought to the border from the Middle East and used as human shields in order to destabilize Central Europe and the European Union. (…) One of the main weapons used in this process is disinformation,” Morawiecki explained.

Poland declared a state of emergency all along the Belarussian border, with over 20,000 Polish officers supervising the area. In this context, British PM Boris Johnson expressed his support for the Polish government. 

„We are showing solidarity with our friends in Poland as you would expect and we would encourage everyone to work for peace and stability in the whole European region. (…) We stand shoulder to shoulder with our friends across the whole region” he said at a news conference initially dedicated to the epidemiological situation in the UK. 

British Minister of Foreign affairs Liz Truss also referred to the crisis by emphasizing her solidarity with Poland and other Central European countries in the midst of this crisis. “We are not just standing side by side with Poland as it bears the brunt of this shameful manufactured migrant crisis, but also the others in the Visegrad Four – Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic – and our friends in the Baltics and Ukraine. (…) We will join forces with our partners to advance our shared interests. At the NATO foreign ministers’ summit in Riga in a few weeks’ time, we will put forward new proposals to challenge the 21st-century methods of aggression being used by those who threaten our freedoms, economies and democracies,” she told the Sunday Telegraph. 

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Despite the efforts of the Polish authorities, some groups of migrants regularly find a way to enter the European Union’s soil illegally. In an attempt to stop this situation, Poland is planning to build a 5m high wall on its border with Belarus for an approximative cost of 1.6 billion PLN (around £285 million). 

Sébastien Meuwissen

Photo: Twitter: @StZaryn