The Euronews TV channel recently broadcast an extensive report on the migration crisis at the Polish-Belarusian border.
In particular, the journalists spoke to migrants from Syria. According to Euronews’s source, the Syrians are fleeing from the regime of Bashar al-Assad. These people flew to Belarus on tourist visas, hoping to enter the EU, and then they were taken to the border with Poland. Polish border guards did not let them in. But the Belarusian law enforcers did not allow them to go back either.
“We were there for a week – seven days. There were small children there, with no food or water. I tried to go back to Minsk and climbed over the fence. They beat me with a baton. There were dogs there, too. They beat everyone and kept saying, “Go to Poland.” If we Syrians were not an instrument of pressure, Belarus would not let us through.”
In 2021, Lithuania, Poland, and Latvia recorded a sharp increase in illegal migration from Belarus. EU countries accuse Lukashenka’s regime of facilitating irregular migration to Europe and deliberately transferring migrants from the Middle East to the border. The West calls the actions of official Minsk a hybrid war.
