“Accommodating 2,000 people in a camp converted from a distribution center”… About 400 Iraqis are heading home
EU continues to refuse to accept refugees… Poland suspends road and rail transport with Belarus
The majority of refugees staying on the Belarus-Polish border are said to have fled the border and moved to nearby temporary camps set up by Belarusian authorities.
According to the Russian daily Izvestia on the 19th (local time), a temporary camp set up in the forests of the ‘Bruzgi-Kuznica’ checkpoint on the border between the two countries and the nearby Belarus area was empty, the Polish border guard said.
Previously, hundreds of refugees stayed here and tried to cross the border to Poland from time to time, clashing with Polish border guards.
However, it is reported that the day before, the refugee camp near the border checkpoint became empty as the Belarusian authorities moved a large number of refugees to a makeshift camp built using a warehouse near the border.
A video posted on Twitter by the Polish border guard showed a procession of refugees moving to a derelict refugee camp and transport depot.
Authorities in Belarus said they were moving about 2,000 refugees to makeshift camps and providing food and tea.
As a result, the crisis of a large-scale armed conflict in the Belarus-Polish border area has been resolved.
The Belarusian side’s actions are said to be following a phone call agreement between Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko and acting German Chancellor Angela Merkel on the 17th.
President Lukashenko said in a phone call that he plans to provide temporary camps for refugees in the border area, suggesting that 5,000 people be returned to their home countries to solve the refugee problem, while another 2,000 will be accepted by Germany.
Natalia Aismont, head of the Belarusian presidential office for public affairs, said there are currently about 7,000 refugees in Belarus.
Although most of the refugees from the border regions have gone to makeshift camps, some are still said to be staying near the border and trying to cross the border.
Polish authorities said refugees had attempted illegal border crossings early in the morning of the 19th.
“Last night was no different from previous nights,” said Polish Defense Minister Mariusi Włashchak.
“There was an attack on the border,” he said.
He said, however, that instead of the refugees trying to cross the border on a large scale, small groups of 10 to dozens of people are using a new tactic to try to cross borders at the same time in multiple places.
Prior to this, about 400 Kurdish Iraqi refugees staying at the Belarus-Polish border gave up their travel to the EU and returned to their home countries on the 18th.
A spokesman for the Kurdish autonomous government in northern Iraq said that 431 people were on board the first refugee-carrying airliner that departed from Minsk, Belarus, and arrived in Erbil, Iraq.
The Belarusian Border Guard said on the 19th that Polish authorities had notified that rail transport passing through the Belarus-Polish border checkpoint ‘Brusgi-Kuznica’ would be suspended from the 21st.
The Polish authorities had warned the day before that if the refugee crisis was not resolved, rail transport through the Bruzgi-Kuznica checkpoint would be halted.
Poland has also suspended road transport through the Bruzgi-Kuznica checkpoint on the 9th.
Germany and Poland still insist that they cannot accept refugees.
Germany’s Interior Minister Horst Seehofer “will not succumb to pressure and accept refugees because it means that the nefarious strategic goals (belarus and Russia) are put into action”.
The Polish government has also announced that it will not provide refugees with the so-called “humanitarian corridor” as an escape route to EU countries.
The EU sees Belarus as cooperating with Russia to promote the refugee issue in retaliation for Western sanctions.
The refugee crisis in Belarus began around September when refugees from the Middle East, such as Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, entered Belarus to enter EU countries and attempted to cross the borders of neighboring Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia.
Then, on the 8th of this month, thousands of refugees residing in Belarus flocked to the Polish border at once, attempting to cross the border, and the crisis escalated.
Poland has declared a state of emergency in the border area and has deployed military police and military equipment to confront the refugees.
The EU believes that Belarusian President Lukashenko’s regime, which has been sanctioned by the West over allegations of fraudulent election last year, is deliberately bringing in refugees and driving them to EU countries in order to impose a burden on the EU and incite division within EU member states.
He also raised suspicions that Belarus’s ally, Russia, was planning a “hybrid attack” using refugees and instigating Belarus.
Belarus and Russia refute the claim, saying they did not contribute to the refugee crisis.
However, Estonia’s foreign minister, Eva-Maria Riimets, said on the 17th that President Lukashenko had demanded that EU sanctions be lifted on Belarus as a condition of resolving the refugee crisis and that his victory in last year’s presidential election was recognized.
Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Belarusian President Lukashenko also had a phone call on the 19th to discuss refugees on the Belarus-EU border, the Kremlin said.
The two leaders expressed concern over the unacceptable and ruthless behavior of Polish border guards using special equipment and using force to deter refugees.
Leaders also agreed on the importance of establishing a direct communication channel between Belarus and EU authorities to resolve the refugee issue, the Kremlin reported.
/yunhap news
