Lukashenka’s relatives purposefully organize trips of migrants to the borders of Belarus with the European Union, said State Secretary for European Affairs to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of France Clément Beaune on Wednesday, October 27th, Deutsche Welle reports.
According to the diplomat, the goal of the Belarusian side is to weaken and divide the European Union.
The French diplomat did not name the members of Lukashenka’s family involved in the transportation of migrants.
Lukashenka wants to trap the European Union when he claims that Europe violates its principles, said Beaune. The representative of the French Foreign Ministry called to act “resolutely and humanely” in the situation on the Polish-Belarusian border.
In May this year, Lukashenka said he would no longer hold back the flow of refugees from the East heading to EU countries. After this statement, the number of migrants trying to enter the EU from the territory of Belarus increased sharply. First, dozens and then hundreds of migrants were stopped daily by Lithuanian border guards. Then refugees headed for Latvia and Poland. Within a few months of the migration crisis, nine people died. Poland and Lithuania are building barbed wire fences on the border with Belarus.
The UN accuses the European Union and Belarus of violating the 1951 Convention on Refugees and calls for granting asylum to migrants and ensuring their rights.
Brussels accuses Minsk of deliberately provoking a migration crisis in response to sanctions imposed on Lukashenka’s regime. The EU is now preparing the fifth package of sanctions against the regime over its use of migrants as a tool against the European Union.
