Polish police said Saturday that the body of a young Syrian man was found in the woods near the border with Belarus, the latest victim in a political standoff at the European Union’s eastern border.
The regime in Minsk has for months been encouraging illegal migration across its border into the EU nations of Poland, Lithuania and Latvia. All three countries are reinforcing their frontiers, seeking to block the newly opened migration route, and the situation is growing more dangerous as winter approaches.
Police said the body was found a day earlier near the village of Wolka Terechowska. They said the exact cause of death could not be determined.
It brings the death toll now to at least nine reported victims in the migration encouraged by Belarus’s longtime President Alexander Lukashenko.
Daily attempts to breach border
Many of the migrants are from Syria, Iraq, or elsewhere in the Middle East, people seeking to flee conflict and hopelessness for the prospect of better lives in Europe.
A large number are in a makeshift camp on the Belarusian side of the border in frigid conditions. Polish authorities report daily new attempts by the migrants to breach the border.
The situation showed no signs of ending soon. Belarusian state news agency Belta reported that Lukashenko on Saturday ordered the military to set up tents at the border where food and other humanitarian aid can be gathered and distributed to the migrants.
Poland’s Border Guards agency on Saturday morning said in one case, Belarusian soldiers began destroying a temporary border barrier near the Polish village of Czeremcha and used laser beams to blind Polish security services.
Europe reinforcing its borders
Nearby, a group of some 100 migrants was waiting to cross the border. “Belarusians equipped the foreigners with tear gas, which was used toward the Polish services,” the Border Guards said, saying the Poles stopped the attempts to cross.
Many of the reported incidents at the border are very hard to verify. Independent journalists face limits to their reporting in Belarus, and a state of emergency in Poland’s border zone prevents media from entering the area.
After the large migration into Europe in 2015, Europe has been reinforcing its borders to discourage the arrival of more migrants and refugees. Still, every year, tens of thousands try to get in, embarking on dangerous and sometimes deadly journeys by sea and land.
Since the summer, thousands have been lured by what appeared to be a new and easier way to slip into Europe, through Belarus.
Sanctions after 2020 election
The EU accuses Lukashenko of creating the artificial route in order to retaliate for sanctions against his regime imposed after an election in 2020 widely viewed as flawed and a harsh crackdown on internal dissent that followed.
The restrictions were toughened after an incident in May when a passenger jet flying from Greece to Lithuania was diverted by Belarus to Minsk, where authorities arrested dissident journalist Raman Pratasevich. The EU called it air piracy, barred Belarusian carriers from its skies and cut imports of the country’s top commodities, including petroleum products and potash, an ingredient in fertilizer.
A furious Lukashenko shot back by saying he would no longer abide by an agreement to stem illegal migration, arguing that the EU sanctions deprived his government of funds needed to contain flows of migrants. Planes carrying migrants from Iraq, Syria and other countries began arriving in Belarus.
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