| Poland is strengthening its borders as Belarus tries to drive refugees from the Middle East to Poland. © Reuters=News1 © News1 Reporter Jeong Yun-young |
The foreign ministers of the G7 countries urged Belarus on the 18th (local time) to end the immigration problem at the Polish border.
Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States have accused the Alexander Lukashenko regime of manipulating illegal immigration at its borders.
“These atrocities are putting people’s lives at risk,” the British government said in a joint statement.
“We are in solidarity with Lithuania and Latvia, as well as Poland,” the statement said.
Earlier, AFP reported that Belarus is trying to push about 5,000 refugees from the Middle East to the Polish border, and Poland is responding by bolstering and deploying troops at the border.
According to the New York Times, refugees were also supplied with grenades from Belarus. The Belarusian side also said that it had cut a hole in the border fence to allow refugees to cross over to the EU side.
The Polish side is mobilizing water representatives and flash cannons to deter refugees.
Western countries, including the European Union, the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom, have criticized President Lukashenko by imposing sanctions on Belarus after he was re-elected. The EU has been in conflict with Belarus, particularly with sanctions against President Lukashenko for his hard-line suppression of large-scale protests against his re-election.
The refugee crisis is being interpreted as ‘a kind of retaliatory measure’ by President Lukashenko. In addition, President Lukashenko is threatening to block his own gas pipeline in the passageway for Russian gas, which is an important energy source for EU countries such as Germany.
jrkim@news1.kr
