Poland has requested an explanation from Germany following an incident where German police transported a group of migrants to the Polish side of the border and left them there.
The incident occurred last Friday when a German police van crossed the border at Osinów Dolny, a small Polish village in the West Pomeranian province. A senior Polish official described the situation as “alarming.”
Gero von Vegesack, a spokesman for the German police, confirmed to the Polish newspaper Fakt that the incident had taken place. He explained that an Afghan family had attempted to illegally enter Germany from Poland on 14 June. According to him, German officials informed the Polish border guard about the situation through the Polish-German Centre for Cooperation of Border, Police, and Customs Services in Świecko.
“Since there was no response from the Polish side for several hours, the officers decided to take the family to the Polish-German border to release them to Poland,” said von Vegesack.
Under the EU’s Dublin Regulation, the country where an asylum seeker first applies for asylum is responsible for processing that claim. This mechanism is often used to return asylum seekers from one member state to another. This prompted German authorities to introduce controls along the Polish border last year.
So far this year, 2,215 immigrants have been recorded making unauthorised entries to Germany via the Belarus route, according to German broadcaster Deutsche Welle. In the same period in 2023, Germany detected around 6,000 such attempts, based on data from the Integration Media Service (Medie Dienst Integration).
Poland has implemented several measures to prevent crossings at the Belarus border, including erecting an anti-migrant border fence and recently reintroducing an exclusion zone at the border to prevent people smugglers from entering the area.
Image: X @e_amyna
Author: Sébastien Meuwissen
