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Poland: Russia and Belarus are using immigrants to help the European right

2024-06-04 17:47:33, Kosova & Bota CNA

A Somali woman passes her bandaged hand through the metal bars of the fence that separates Belarus from Poland. Together with four other women, they keep their eyes on the European Union.

The women nod in gratitude when a Polish aid worker calls them from across the border to promise to help them. Polish soldiers patrol nearby.

The verdant Bialowieza Forest along the border is among the main flashpoints between Belarus, its main ally Russia and the 27-member European bloc, which is experiencing a surge in migrants as European Parliament elections begin on Thursday.

The number of attempts to illegally cross the border from Belarus into EU member Poland has increased to nearly 400 a day, up from just a few a day this year, Polish officials say.

Polish border patrols have also noted increasingly aggressive behavior by some of the migrants on the Belarusian side of the border. Videos have been released of some of the migrants throwing stones, sticks and even burning branches at Polish forces on the other side of the fence.

There have been cases of soldiers and border guards being hospitalized after being stabbed. Last Tuesday near the village of Dubicze Cerkiewne, officials said a migrant, while across the 5-meter-high fence, stabbed one of the Polish soldiers in the ribs.

Over the past few years, European authorities have accused Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko of using immigration to lure people to his country with the promise of easier entry into the EU, compared to the perilous journey across the Mediterranean.

And yet immigrants continue to die; some are buried in Muslim and Christian cemeteries in Poland.

Poland sees the new wave at the border as an orchestrated effort by Russia and Belarus to stoke anti-immigrant sentiment, which could help right-wing parties during European elections.

Immigrants have made a long journey to the countries of the former Soviet Union; some come from as far away as Africa and the Middle East. Poland and the European Union say the migrants are being used by Russia and Belarus to destabilize Europe, which has supported Ukraine in defending itself against Russia's offensive that began more than two years ago.

A metal fence costing $405 million has been erected along part of the 180-kilometer-long border under Poland's conservative government in 2022. It is one of the measures against the influx of migrants that many in Europe want to stop.

The border siege has handed a victory to anti-immigration parties, which are often backed by Russia.

Now Prime Minister Donald Tusk's government, which took power in December on the promise of a new pro-European direction after eight years of conservative rule, has pledged to increase security measures and said it must protect the EU's border.

"We are not just dealing with asylum seekers here. We face a coordinated, highly efficient operation to breach the Polish border and attempts to destabilize the country," Mr. Tusk said last week while visiting border defense forces.

According to Poland, Moscow's scenario of overloading Europe with migrants would provide political material for far-right anti-immigration parties in countries such as France, Germany and Italy.

Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski told a meeting Monday in Bialystok, eastern Poland, that many of the migrants trying to cross the Polish border "are people with Russian visas" — meaning they were at one point allowed to enter the Russia before heading towards Belarus and the West.

"At least they were encouraged and maybe even recruited for this operation, so we know who is behind this operation," he said. "This is intended to have a political effect - to strengthen the extreme right, which promises to destroy the European Union from within."

The Interior Ministry in neighboring Germany, the main destination for many migrants, has noted a growing trend of unauthorized immigration linked to Russia and Belarus. Germany attributed the increase in part to increased measures taken by Russian security officials against illegal immigrants following the deadly terror attack at a Moscow concert hall in March.

Critics have accused Russia under President Vladimir Putin of various actions against the West in recent years, including election meddling, disinformation and fake news campaigns, computer hacking and the alleged poisoning abroad of the Kremlin chief's enemies. - accusations that Moscow denies.

Sviatlana Tsikhnaouskaya, a Belarusian opposition leader living in exile, told the Associated Press news agency that Mr Lukashenko's government is trying to "blackmail the EU and scare it with waves of out-of-control migrants".

"Here the interests of Lukashenko and Putin coincide," she said.

WHAT WILL BE THE FATE OF THE IMMIGRANTS?

Caught in the middle are the migrants themselves, among them many women and children trapped in the swamps and forests along the border. During May, volunteers on the Polish side of the border were seen giving water to a man from Algeria.

Aid activists have accused Mr Tusk's government of tough border policies. He himself has admitted that many of the soldiers find themselves in a dilemma between the need to protect the border and sympathy for aid workers who want to help people in need.

Migrants who manage to cross the border can apply to receive international protection within the borders of the EU. This type of protection is only granted in exceptional cases. Many of them are deported to their countries.

Olga Cielemencka, an activist with the Voluntary Humanitarian Emergency Service Podlaskie, who has promised to help the Somali woman with a bandaged hand, says her organization is trying to provide counseling and assistance to migrants.

"But our possibilities to act are very limited", she said. "We cannot do more"./ VOA