The image could not be more impressive: close to 2. Migrants crowd in front of a fence located in the Polish city of Kuznica, on the border with Belarus. On the other side, dozens of Polish soldiers guard the fence so that none of those migrants, most of them Kurdish Iraqis fleeing their country, enter Poland.
And the dividing fence is only the a sign of a crisis that has been growing since the middle of this year: in the last months the migratory influx from Belarus has doubled and has put the governments of Lithuania and Poland in check.
According to the Lithuanian government, about 4. 000 Migrants have entered illegally across the border with Belarus so far in 2021.
The Prime Minister of Poland Mateusz Morawiecki on Tuesday accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of being behind what is happening.
Morawiecki said the leader of Belarus, a close ally to Putin, he is “orchestrating the crisis”, but that “the mastermind is in Moscow.”
All this, with an aggravating factor: both countries are members of the European Union, which turns this area into a new immigration passage, together with the Mediterranean and the Balkans, towards European territory.
And the images that are recorded only remind us of what happened in these places to mid 2020, when thousands of migrants arrived – and many died in the attempt – on their crossing to European coasts.
But what’s behind this new flow and why is Belarus accused of using migrants as “a weapon of revenge”?
“Testimonies have been heard from Belarusian soldiers helping migrants to cross the border with Poland. Many point out that this is a response from Aleksander Lukashenko, the president of Belarus, to the sanctions imposed by the European Union, ”says Paul Adams, BBC Diplomatic Affairs correspondent.
Controversial elections
A year ago, there was no talk of a migration route through Poland to enter the EU. That transit, which had its most serious humanitarian crisis in 2016, was centered on the Balkans, points on the Mediterranean Sea in Italy and Greece and the passage through southern Spain.
Without However, the presidential elections in Belarus, in August 2021, would be the starting point of what is being experienced this week on the border with Poland.
At that time, the electoral result – according to the government’s count – gave an overwhelming majority in favor of Aleksander Lukashenko , who has ruled the country for 20 years. But the results were rejected by broad sectors of the opposition.
That took hundreds of thousands of people to the streets to demand the departure of what has been called “the last dictator of Europe”, in one of the largest popular mobilizations that took place. have seen since the country gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.
Several countries such as China and Russia welcomed Lukashenko’s re-election; However, dozens of other countries – including the United States, Germany, France and Canada – questioned the result of the vote.
For example, the then German government spokesman, Steffen Seibert , stated that the “minimum standards for democratic elections were not observed during the vote and that the opposition reports on electoral fraud were credible. ”
However, it was Lukashenko’s reaction – who rejected the allegations of fraud – to the popular mobilizations What began to draw the attention of several countries in the West.
First was the imprisonment of several opposition leaders and repression by the armed forces of the mobilizations in the street, and even the intervention of offices for the defense of Human Rights, including the UN mission.
But the event that triggered the crisis occurred on 23 May of this year: a plane of the Ryanair airline, which is based in Ireland, and which covered the Athens-Vilnius route, was forced to land in Minsk, the capital of Belarus, when it was cruising the airspace of this country.
On this flight was Roman Protasevich, journalist and one of the most visible leaders of the opposition to Lukashenko.
Protasevich was taken out of the plane with his wife and sent to a prison. The plane continued its itinerary, but the reactions were immediate.
Although the European Union and the United States had already announced sanctions against the Belarusian government, during the month of June of this year they increased the sanctions, especially directed against Lukashenko and his main collaborators.
Then came the reply from Belarus.
“Migrants as weapons”
During the month of June of 2021 an increase in migrants who tried to enter Poland and Lithuania through the Belarus border began to be noticed.
The Lithuanian government pointed out that Lukashenko was using migrants as “a political weapon”, due to the EU sanctions.
Spokespersons for this country denounced that Belarus was giving tourist visas to migrants from Iraq and Syria to facilitate their entry by plane into the country and to arrive to its border.
A BBC investigation, published in October, found how Belarus was helping migrants from these countries by granting them tourist visas to circulate through your country towards the border with Lithuania and Poland.
But not only make it easier for them to get to Minsk, but also transport them to the borders, as the journalist Adams points out.
“Migrants have told us many stories about the role Belarusian soldiers played in helping them make illegal crossings. s to Poland and Lithuania “, the correspondent notes.
” Some cross in small groups, while others have spoken of have been transported to the border in military trucks “, it adds.
The Belarusian government has denied any relationship with the increase in migrants on the borders of Lithuania and Poland.
In addition, the Belarusian border agency issued a press release this week in which confirmed that about 2. 000 “refugees” had gathered in front of the fences installed by the Polish government.
“These people want to seek refuge and the Polish government is using unjustified measures to stop them,” can be read in the statement.
Worrying escalation
The situation began to be worrying te from October, when both the Polish and Lithuanian governments announced that they were going to build fences to stop the migratory flow from Belarus.
This created the traffic jam that reached its climax this week, something that the European Union and NATO have described as “worrying.”
NATO indicated that it is ready to provide assistance to maintain “order and security in the region.”
In addition, faced with this situation, the President of the European Commission, Úrsula von der Leyen, asked the EU member states to impose new sanctions against the Belarusian regime, which it accused of “putting people’s lives at risk.”
Meanwhile, the United States urged Lukashenko to “ stop immediately campaign of orchestration and coercion ” of the illegal flow of migrants across the border of their country towards Europe.
Various organizations Human rights organizations have also drawn attention to the state of migrants at the border, especially due to the low temperatures that occur at night, which could affect minors.
“The situation in that place is delicate. Many of them do not have the resources to survive in a climate of this nature and several have died in recent months. That is why it is important to regulate their situation, ”lawyer Marta Gorczinska told the BBC.
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